Her manager, possessed of a second copy of The Ledger, now made a weighty contribution to the discussion. “Just the same, this’ll help sell out the house. It’s full of stuff we can lift to paper the town with.”
He indicated several lines heartily praising Miss Raleigh and the cast, and one which, wrenched from its satirical context, was made to give an equally favorable opinion of the play. Something of Banneker’s astonishment at this cavalier procedure must have been reflected in his face, for Marrineal, opposite, turned to him with a look of amusement.
“What’s your view of that, Mr. Banneker?”
“Mine?” said Banneker promptly. “I think it’s crooked. What’s yours?”
“Still quick on the trigger,” murmured the other, but did not answer the return query.
Replies in profusion came from the rest, however. “It isn’t any crookeder than the review.”—“D’you call that fair criticism!”—“Gurney! He hasn’t an honest hair in his head.”—“Every other critic is strong for it; this is the only knock.”—“What did Laurence ever do to Gurney?”
Out of the welter of angry voices came Betty Raleigh’s clear speech, addressed to Banneker.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Banneker; I’d forgotten that The Ledger is your paper.”
“Oh, The Ledger ain’t any worse than the rest of ’em, take it day in and day out,” the manager remarked, busily penciling apposite texts for advertising, on the margin of Gurney’s critique.
“It isn’t fair,” continued the star. “A man spends a year working over a play—it was more than a year on this, wasn’t it, Denny?” she broke off to ask the author.