I read on and on. I could not leave it. Incredible as it would appear from anyone but me, I solemnly assure you that the typewritten nonsense I read that evening was nothing else than The Girl who Waited.
CHAPTER 25
BRIGGS TO THE RESCUE
(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)
I finished the last page, and I laid down the typescript reverently. The thing amazed me. Unable as I was to turn out a good acting play of my own, I was, nevertheless, sufficiently gifted with an appreciation of the dramatic to be able to recognise such a play when I saw it. There were situations in Margaret’s comedy which would grip a London audience, and force laughter and tears from it.... Well, the public side of that idiotic play is history. Everyone knows how many nights it ran, and the Press from time to time tells its readers what were the profits from it that accrued to the author.
I turned to Margaret’s letter and re-read the last page. She put the thing very well, very sensibly. As I read, my scruples began to vanish. After all, was it so very immoral, this little deception that she proposed?
“I have written down the words,” she said; “but the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you. But for you I should never have begun it.” Well, if she put it like that——
“You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. You know the right men to go to. To approach them on behalf of a stranger’s work is far less likely to lead to success.”
(True, true.)
“I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to be produced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own,”
(There was sense in this.)