rization of
'Roderick Hanscom.' I tell you, if I do it, they're going to call it
a big thing. They aren't all maniacs about everything made in France,
thank heaven! Rostand! Ass! I'm not playing parts with a clothespin on
the end of my nose!" And again he mimicked the departed visitor: "'This
for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow.' My soul! Does he think
I want to play CHICKENS?"

Sulphurously, he resumed his pacing of the floor.

Old Tinker seemed unaffected by this outburst, but for that matter he
seemed unaffected by anything. His dead gaze followed his employer's
to-and-fro striding as a cat's follows a pendulum, but without the
cat's curiosity about a pendulum. He never interrupted when Potter was
speaking; and Canby noticed that whenever Potter talked at any length
Tinker looked thoughtful and distant, like a mechanic so accustomed
to the whirr and thunder of the machine-shop that he may indulge in
reveries there. After a moment or two the old fellow ceased to follow
the pendulum stride, and turned to the playwright.

"I'll tell you the two surest ways to make what you call the public like
a play, Mr. Canby," he said. "Nothing is sure, but these are the nearest
to it. Make 'em laugh. I mean, make 'em laugh after they get home, or
the next day in the office, any time they get to thinking about it. The
other way is to get two actors for your lovers that the audience, young
and old, can't help falling in love with; a young actor that the females
in the audience think they'd like to marry, and a young actress that the
males all think they'd like to marry. It doesn't matter much about the
writing; just have something interfere between them from eight-fifteen
until along about twenty-five minutes after ten. The two lovers don't
necessarily have to know much about acting, either, though of course
it's better if they happen to. The best stage-lover I ever knew, and the
one that played in the most successes, did happen to understand acting
thor--"

"Who was that?" Potter interrupted fiercely. "Mounet-Sully?"

"No. I meant Dora Preston."

"Never heard of her!"

"No," said the old man. "You wouldn't. They don't put up monuments to
pretty actresses, nor write about them in school histories. She dropped
dead in her dressing-room one night forty-two years ago. I was thinking
of her to-day; something reminded me of her."

"Was she a friend of yours, Mr. Tinker?" Canby asked.

"Friend? No. I was an usher in th