"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do for it."
"I'm going to rewrite the whole blamed mess for fifteen hundred dollars, that's what I'm going to do," announced Mr. Howard with both belligerence and excitement in his voice and in the flash of his sick little eyes.
"Is it as good—or as bad—as all that—money?" questioned Mr. Vandeford. "You'll have to show me," he added calmly, though in the vitals of his heart he was relieved that Howard still spoke of "The Purple Slipper" as a carcass on which to operate.
"It's got a perfectly ripping, basic, sex-comedy idea that climaxes the third act; the rest is piffle."
"I thought some of the character drawing, and one or two of the sentimental bits were—actable," Mr. Vandeford ventured, determined to save as much of the hair and hide of Miss Adair's child as possible, enough at least to help her to recognize and claim it later.
"Oh, we can leave enough bits to anchor the author's name, if that is what you mean," the playwright admitted impatiently. "How about fifteen hundred? I won't do it for less."
"Goes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest ease with which he had ever dispensed five hundred dollars in all his life. "Now shoot me your layout of the whole thing before Mazie gets here to take you and lock you up."
"I'm going to take that dinner scene where the wife holds her husband's enemies and her lover at bay to see if he gets back home on a sporting-chance bet with lover, and write Hawtry both back and front of it; write her in as the virago she is and give her a chance to act herself for once."
"Good idea," admitted Mr. Vandeford. "But you'll have a hard time writing a gutter girl into a grand dame, won't you?"
"Women are all alike, and the worst viragos are the grand dames. It takes a gutter girl to play one let loose, as they do only on rare occasions. I've got 'em in my own family. That's the reason I'm a black sheep turned out. Got a sister that's worse than me, only respectable and fashionable. See?"