He skipped the evening meal at Mrs. Arty’s, dining with literary pensiveness at the Armenian, for he had subtle problems to meditate. He bought a dollar fountain-pen, which had large gold-like bands and a rather scratchy pen-point, and a box of fairly large sheets of paper. Pressing his literary impedimenta tenderly under his arm, he attended four moving-picture and vaudeville theaters. By eleven he had seen three more one-act plays and a dramatic playlet.
He slipped by the parlor door at Mrs. Arty’s.
His room was quiet. The lamplight on the delicately green walls was like that of a regular author’s den, he was quite sure. He happily tested the fountain-pen by writing the names Nelly and William Wrenn on a bit of wrapping-paper (which he guiltily burned in an ash-tray); washed his face with water which he let run for a minute to cool; sat down before his table with a grunt of content; went back and washed his hands; fiercely threw off the bourgeois encumbrances of coat and collar; sat down again; got up to straighten a picture; picked up his pen; laid it down, and glowed as he thought of Nelly, slumbering there, near at hand, her exquisite cheek nestling silkenly against her arm, perhaps, and her white dreams—
Suddenly he roared at himself, “Get on the job there, will yuh?” He picked up the pen and wrote:
THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER
A ONE ACT DRAMATIC PLAYLET
by
WILLIAM WRENN
CHARACTERS
John Warrington, a railway president; quite rich.
Nelly Warrington, Mr. Warrington’s daughter.
Reginald Thorne, his secretary.
He was jubilant. His pen whined at top speed, scattering a shower of tiny drops of ink.
Stage Scene: An office. Very expensive. Mr. Warrington and Mr. Thorne are sitting there. Miss Warrington comes in. She says:
He stopped. He thought. He held his head. He went over to the stationary bowl and soaked his hair with water. He lay on the bed and kicked his heels, slowly and gravely smoothing his mustache. Fifty minutes later he gave a portentous groan and went to bed.
He hadn’t been able to think of what Miss Warrington says beyond “I have come to tell you that I am married, papa,” and that didn’t sound just right; not for a first line it didn’t, anyway.