bring expressions
out of an ordinary man as strong and solemn and dramatic as those used
in fiction or on the stage to portray those emotions."

"That's where you fellows are wrong," said Hollis. "Plain, every-day
talk is what goes. Your captain would very likely have kicked the cat,
lit a cigar, stirred up a highball, and telephoned for a lawyer,
instead of getting off those Robert Mantell pyrotechnics."

"Possibly, a little later," I continued. "But just at the time--just
as the blow is delivered, if something Scriptural or theatrical and
deep-tongued isn't wrung from a man in spite of his modern and
practical way of speaking, then I'm wrong."

"Of course," said Hollis, kindly, "you've got to whoop her up some
degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain
kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out
of the atmosphere, and scream: "Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!" What she
would actually do would be to call up the police by 'phone, ring for
some strong tea, and get the little darling's photo out, ready for the
reporters. When you get your villain in a corner--a stage corner--it's
all right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: "All is
lost!" Off the stage he would remark: "This is a conspiracy against
me--I refer you to my lawyers.'"

"I get no consolation," said I, gloomily, "from your concession of an
accentuated stage treatment. In my play I fondly hoped that I was
following life. If people in real life meet great crises in a
commonplace way, they should do the same on the stage."

And then we drifted, like two trout, out of our cool pool in the great
hotel and began to nibble languidly at the gay flies in the swift
current of Broadway. And our question of dramatic art was unsettled.

We nibbled at the flies, and avoided the hooks, as wise trout do; but
soon the weariness of Manhattan in summer overcame us. Nine stories
up, facing the south, was Hollis's apartment, and we soon stepped into
an elevator bound for that cooler haven.

I was familiar in those quarters, and quickly my play was forgotten,
and I stood at a sideboard mixing things, with cracked ice and glasses
all about me. A breeze from the bay came in the windows not altogether
blighted by the asphalt furnace over which it had passed. Hollis,
whistling softly, turned over a late-arrived letter or two on his
table, and drew around the coolest wicker armchairs.

I was just measuring t