“I never cared for it very much myself; but Bob Bolsover was dead set upon my giving the public my reading of Clytie—and, well, you must recollect the effect I created in that studio scene. Mullekens came round afterward, and brought his critic with him, and said that the best French school of acting must now look to its laurels, and a lot more. Mullekens is the proprietor of the Daily Tomahawk, and so, of course, I thought we were in for a good thing. How could I imagine that the creature of a critic would go home and make game of the whole show? Doesn’t Mullekens pay him?”
“Ah, ja! Poot dat gritic’s vife is de sister of de Chairman agtress dat blayed Glytie in de orichinal Chairman broduction,” put in Gormleigh, whose real surname was Gameltzch, as everybody does not know. “Did I not varn you? It vas a gase of veels vidin veels.”
“Wheels or no wheels, Clytie kissed us out of three thou. odd,” said De Hanna, wearily scratching his ear with his “Geyser” pen, “and then we cut our throats with——”
“With him,” put in Candelish, jerking a contemptuous thumb at the hat-crowned effigy of the Bard of Avon.
“You were keen on my giving the great mass of playgoers a chance of seeing my Juliet,” remarked Mrs. Gudrun casting a Parthian glance at the worm that had turned.
“But they didn’t take the chance,” put in De Hanna, “and consequently—we fizzle out.”
“Like a burst bladder ...” moaned Candelish, who saw before him a weary waste of months unenlivened by paid occupation.
“Or a damp sguib,” put in Gormleigh.
“Let’s have a sputter before we expire,” said De Hanna, with a momentary revival of energy. “Lots of manuscripts have been sent in.... Isn’t there a little domestic drama of the purely popular sort, or a farce imbecile enough to pay for production, to be found among ’em?”
“Dunno,” yawled Candelish, tilting his chair.