"But I don't need any agent," he protested. "You be my agent, Mr. Crocker—" He was studying my reaction, and after a moment he said, "You still don't quite believe that I wrote Updraft, do you, sir? Now that you've met me you want more time to check up, don't you?"
I said, "Frankly, yes, Hardy. Updraft is a mature piece of writing, and unless you are a genius—well, it's just business son."
"I don't blame you," he said smiling that fresh-air smile. "And I'll admit I'm no genius, but I can explain everything. You see, I've read 38 books on how to write plays—"
"Tut!" I said. "Format technique is just a fraction of producing an appealing play."
"Perhaps," he admitted. "But I've memorized all 38 books. What's more, I've been reading and memorizing plays, novels, poetry and history since I was 13. I have a storehouse of—"
"Memorizing?"
"Yes, sir. I'm a student of mnemonics, you know, the art of memory perfection. My real ambition is to develop absolute recall. All my reading and memorizing have been just exercises to expand my power of complete recall."
"You mean that playwriting is just a hobby?"
"Not—exactly. I need money, lots of it, to continue my research. Psychiatrists come high."
Well, I suppose good plays have been written for screwier reasons, and I was in no mood to look a gift-author in the mouth. I did pass Updraft around to a brace of critics, and none of them could hang a plagiarism charge on Hardy. So I wrote out his check and started the wheels going on the production.