The proposal was too flattering to be rejected out of hand.

After a furious week upon a plot and dialogue, I was given an
opportunity to display my wares. The manager himself met me in the
hallway. "Is there a shooting?" he asked, with what seemed almost a
suppressed excitement. I was able to satisfy him and he led me to his
inner office, where he pointed out an easy chair. The room was
pleasantly furnished with bookshelves to the ceiling. Evidently his
former ventures had been prosperous, and already I imagined myself
come to fortune as his partner. While I fumbled with embarrassment at
my papers--for I dreaded his severe opinion--he himself fetched a
basket of coal for a fire that burned briskly on the hearth. Then he
sat rigidly at attention.

It now appeared that he had summoned to our conference several of his
associates--the subordinates, merely, of his ventures--his manager of
finance (with a sharp eye for a business flaw), his costumer and
designer, and another person who is his reader and adviser and, in
emergency, fills and mends any sudden gap that shows itself.

My notion of theatrical managers has been that they are a cold and
distant race--the more sullen cousin of an editor. Is it not
considered that on the reading of a play they sit with fallen chin,
and that they chill an author to reduce his royalty? It is naught, it
is naught, saith the buyer. I am told that even the best plays are
hawked with disregard from theatre to theatre, until the hungry
author is out at elbow. They get less civility than greets a mean
commodity. Worthless mining shares and shoddy gilt editions do not
kick their heels with such disregard in the outer office. Popcorn and
apples--Armenian laces, even--beg a quicker audience.

But none of this usual brusqueness appeared. Rather, he showed an
agreeable enthusiasm as we proceeded--even an unrestraint, which, I
must confess, at times somewhat marred his repose and dignity.
Manifestly it was not his intention to depreciate my wares. He
exchanged frank glances of approval with his subordinates--with his
costumer especially, with whom his relation seems the closest.

In the first act of my play, when it becomes apparent that one of my
pirates goes stumping on a timber leg, his eye flashed. And when it
was disclosed that the captain wears a hook instead of hand, he forgot
his professional restraint and cried out his satisfaction. He was soon
wrapped in thought by the mysterious beh