“Something very original about it.”
“Wants a lot of cutting.”
“Oh, yes—too long.”
“Damsite!”
“This Mr. Theodore Leonard—ever heard of him, Manning?”
The stage-manager picked his teeth negatively.
“No, neither have I. A first play, probably. Very fresh and ingenious—modern, too. Yes, yes! The part of the doctor—with a little alteration—I think we could get away with it. H’m! read it again, Manning—read it again.”
The result of Manning’s second excursion through “A Man’s Way” was reassuring. He repeated his former verdict that it “wasn’t too bad.”
That night as he lay in bed Eliphalet Cardomay digested “A Man’s Way” and revolved the possibilities of doing it in his mind. It was so essentially unlike anything he had ever done before that the prospect pleased. The central character of the doctor was his firm, purposeful way—his manner of treating wife and patient with the same unvarying but just dictatorship—it was new, and yet true to life—very human, if only on account of the unemotional quality of the work.
From beginning to end there wasn’t a single set speech—no lofty periods of crescendo to induce those rapturous outbursts of applause by means of which members of provincial audiences seek to convince their immediate neighbours that they are sensible and appreciative to the influences of uplifting thought.