nstantly insisted in print:
Rostand. You commission Rostand to do one of his magnificent things for
you and we serious men will do our part. Now, my duh good chap, I must
be getting on, or the little gel will be telephoning all round the
town!" He turned to the door, pausing upon the threshold. "Now, don't
let any of these cheap little fellows foist any of their cheap little
plays on you. This for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow. Drop
the cheap little things and cable Rostand. Tell him I suggested it, if
you like." He disappeared in the hallway, calling back: "My duh Pottuh,
good-night!" And the outer door was heard to close.

Canby, feeling a natural prejudice against this personage, glanced
uneasily at Talbot Potter's face and was surprised to find that fine
bit of modelling contorted with rage. The sight of this emotion was
reassuring, but its source was a mystery, for it had seemed to the
playwright that the wasp-waisted youth's remarks--though horribly
damaging to the cheap little Canbys with their cheap little "Roderick
Hanscoms"--were on the whole rather flattering to the subject of them,
and betokened a real interest in his career.

"Ass!" said Potter.

Canby exhaled a breath of relief. He began to feel that it might be
possible to like this man.

"Ass!" said Potter, striding up and down the room. "Ass! Ass! Ass! Ass!"

And Canby felt easier and happier. He foresaw, too, that there would be
no cabling to Rostand, a thing he had naively feared, for a moment, as
imminent.

Potter halted, bursting into speech less monosyllabic but no less
vehement: "Mr. Tinker, did you ever see Mounet-Sully?"

"No."

"Did you, Mr. Canby?"

"No."

"Mewnay-Sooyay!" Potter mimicked the pronunciation of his adviser.
"'Mewnay-Sooyay! Of coss I don't say YOU could ever be another
Mewnay-Sooyay!' Ass! I'll tell you what Mounet-Sully's 'technique'
amounts to, Mr. Tinker. It's yell! Just yell, yell, yell! Does he think
I can't yell! Why, Packer could open his mouth like a hippopotamus and
yell through a part! Ass!"

"Was that young man a-a critic?" Canby asked.

"No!" shouted Potter. "There aren't any!"

"He writes about theatrical matters," said Carson Tinker. "Talky-talk
writing: 'the drama'--'temperament'--'people of cultivation'--quotes
Latin or Italian or something. 'Technique' is his star word; he plays
'technique' for a hand every other line. Doesn't do any harm; in fact,
I think he does us a good deal of