here is a
vacancy here now, and if you are still looking for something the
place is yours. The work will be ... [_Pause._] to develop the
interesting plans you spoke to me about, pending possible use of
them in the future.... [_Pause._] The salary will be small to start
with, twenty-five dollars a week. Paragraph. You can begin work at
any time....

CURTAIN

ACT II

_A few months later. The hour is dusk. A basement apartment lower
than street level. There are four doors, one leading in from the
street, one leading to a back yard, one to a kitchen, another to a
bedroom. The room is large and serves as a combined living room and
place of business for a dog specialist. Some of the furniture of
the old place is here. There is a shelf displaying packages of dog
biscuit, muzzles, etc. The walls are decorated with pictures of
dogs and glaring advertisements of dog goods, especially
insecticides. There is a large homemade sign_:

_I CLIP, TRIM, PLUCK, WASH AND EXTERMINATE._

_At one side is Martin's sketching table, and on wall near it some
of his drawings._

TIPPY _is kneeling on the floor beside a wash-tub, bathing a
terrier. He talks to it gently, soothingly, all through following
scene._

MARTIN, _with a green eyeshade, is working on a sketch under a
table lamp._

_During scene_ TIPPY _takes dog out of tub and begins drying him
with a Turkish towel. Has large stack of clean folded towels
and uses one after the other_.

MARTIN. [_As he sketches._] Your persistent love of Class of '29
reunions seems to me more admirable than politic.

TIPPY. It will go off all right if you refrain from talking
politics.

MARTIN. As if I were the only member of the Unholy Six with a
capacity to make faux pas!

TIPPY. You have tact and tolerance--when you choose to use them.

MARTIN. Thanks.

TIPPY. The fact that you and Ted still manage to live under the
same roof proves that.

MARTIN. That poor devil would win the compassion of Hitler
himself--with three Jewish grandmothers!

TIPPY. Well? If you can put up with Ted, who never did a lick of
work in his life, why quarrel with Ken who is now a true worker,
being duly exploited by a wicked capitalist?

MARTIN. Who said I'd quarrel with him?

TIPPY. You will.

MARTIN. All right. You referee.

TIPPY. If he high-hats you with his success I'll tell him that
you've sold a drawing to the _New Yorker_ and you can high-hat him
back.

MARTIN. Lay off that _New Yorke