"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant stage-director.
"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"
Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr. Pilkington, wounded to the quick.
"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
"Well?"
"That is the best epigram in the play."
"The best what?"
"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."
Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain under the vest. All right, get on."
Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.