es his partner to suffer the penalty. Haxard comes North,
and after trying it in various places, he settles here, and marries, and
starts in business and prospers on, while the other fellow takes their
joint punishment in the penitentiary. By the way, it just occurs to me!
I think I'll have it that Haxard has killed a man, a man whom he has
injured; he doesn't mean to kill him, but he has to; and this fellow is
knowing to the homicide, but has been prevented from getting onto
Haxard's trail by the consequences of his own misdemeanors; that will
probably be the best way out. Of course it all has to transpire, all
these facts, in the course of the dialogue which the two men have with
each other in Haxard's library, after a good deal of fighting away from
the inevitable identification on Haxard's part. After the first few
preliminary words with the butler at the door before he goes in to find
the other man--his name is Greenshaw--"
"That's a good name, too," said the actor.
"Yes, isn't it? It has a sort of probable sound, and yet it's a made-up
name. Well, I was going to say--"
"And I'm glad you have it a homicide that Haxard is guilty of, instead
of a business crime of some sort. That sort of crime never tells with an
audience," the actor observed.
"No," said Maxwell. "Homicide is decidedly better. It's more
melodramatic, and I don't like that, but it will be more appreciable, as
a real sin, to most of the audience; we steal and cheat so much, and we
kill comparatively so little in the North. Well, I was going to say that
I shall have this whole act to consist entirely of the passage between
the two men. I shall let it begin with a kind of shiver creeping over
the spectator, when he recognizes the relation between them, and I hope
I shall be able to make it end with a shudder, for Haxard must see from
the first moment, and he must let the audience see at last, that the
only way for him to save himself from his old crime is to commit a new
one. He must kill the man who saw him kill a man."
"That's good," the actor thoughtfully murmured, as if tasting a pleasant
morsel to try its flavor. "Excellent."
Maxwell laughed for pleasure, and went on: "He arranges to meet the man
again at a certain time and place, and that is the last of Greenshaw. He
leaves the house alone; and the body of an unknown man is found floating
up and down with the tide under the Long Bridge. There are no marks of
violence; he must have falle
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