As the weeks passed, however, Cairy was drawn to the city for longer intervals. The new play had not been a "Broadway success," in fact had been taken off after a short run, and Cairy's money affairs were again becoming precarious, much to Isabella's frank concern. "It's the wretched condition of the theatre in our country," she complained; "to think that a few miserable newspaper writers can ruin the chances of a dramatist's being heard! The managers become panicky, if it doesn't go at once in New York…. There is a chance that they will put it on again somewhere West. But Tom hasn't much hope."
"It was a poor play," Fosdick asserted flatly. "And if you hadn't heard it line by line from Tommy, you'd know it."
"No," Isabelle protested; "it's lots cleverer than most things."
"I do not know how it may be with the theatre," Gossom put in at this point, "but more literature is produced in America to-day than at any other time in the world's history!"
"Oh!"
"I don't mean mere rhetoric, college writing," Gossom went on dogmatically; "but literature, things with blood to them in the language people use. Why, in the story contest for the People's there were at least fourteen masterpieces submitted, and not one of them had any reference to Europe, or showed the least trace of what college professors call style!" He turned triumphantly to Vickers, to whom he had previously expressed his conviction that America was the future home of all the arts. This was an idea in his patriotic creed.
"Fourteen masterpieces,—really!" drawled Fosdick; "and how much a masterpiece, please? I must send you mine."
They had heard a good deal this week about the famous story contest for the People's. Gossom, ignoring the gibe, continued:—
"We publish every month real literature, the kind that comes from the heart, the stuff of real human lives. I am tired of this silly whine about the lack of opportunities for genius in our country."
"It's hard on Tommy, all the same," Isabelle concluded irrelevantly.