Their notion of “knocking it into shape” was knocking it to pieces.
“I'll tell you what we'll do,” would say the low comedian; “we'll cut that scene out altogether.” Joyously he would draw his pencil through some four or five pages of my manuscript.
“But it is essential to the story,” I would argue.
“Not at all.”
“But it is. It is the scene in which Roderick escapes from prison and falls in love with the gipsy.”
“My dear boy, half-a-dozen words will do all that. I meet Roderick at the ball. 'Hallo, what are you doing here?' 'Oh, I have escaped from prison.' 'Good business. And how's Miriam?' 'Well and happy—she is going to be my wife!' What more do you want?”
“I have been speaking to Mr. Hodgson,” would observe the leading lady, “and he agrees with me, that if instead of falling in love with Peter, I fell in love with John—”
“But John is in love with Arabella.”
“Oh, we've cut out Arabella. I can sing all her songs.”
The tenor would lead me into a corner. “I want you to write in a little scene for myself and Miss Duncan at the beginning of the first act. I'll talk to her about it. I think it will be rather pretty. I want her—the second time I see her—to have come out of her room on to a balcony, and to be standing there bathed in moonlight.”