or both.

"D'you like the '06 Ruinart, or is it too dry for you?" he asked.

"Nothing's too dry for me," Eric answered, "but I decline to drink
champagne at lunch. I've work to do this afternoon."

His host smiled persuasively and continued to write his bill.

"It'll do you good, boy. Buck you up. Well, how are you? The last time I
was here, some old buffer told me you'd been seedy, but that was right
away back in the summer. What was the matter?"

"I was only a bit run down," Eric answered. "What did you think of the
play?"

Manders gave his bill to a waiter and planted his elbows on the table,
pressing his finger-tips together.

"Well, I read it very carefully," he began. "By the way, before I forget
it, 'The Bomb-Shell's' doing very well on tour."

Eric chewed his lips impatiently. He would gladly hear about "The
Bomb-Shell" later, but he now wanted to pin Manders to a criticism of
"The Singing Bird."

"Well, let's keep the wolf from the door as long as we can."

The subject dismissed, he looked up expectantly and found Manders wholly
absorbed with his oysters, rejecting red pepper for black, shaking a
cautious drop of tabasco vinegar on each, adding a dash of lemon-juice
and, when all else was ready, sipping his champagne with preliminary
caution. The play would have to be cut about, then; perhaps the
actor-manager was disappointed with his own part. . . .

"Well, let's hear all about it," Manders began heartily. "When did you
find time to write it? After you'd got 'The Bomb-Shell' out of the way?"

"Not immediately. I knocked off all my other work and concentrated on
this thing day and night for three months."

"Three months? You're a quick worker. You know, boy, that would have
been a better play if you'd given more time to it."

Manders slipped three oysters into his mouth in rapid succession, and
Eric smiled with indulgent patience. One hard-dying school of critics
always made quick work a synonym for hasty work.

"I managed to crowd about three years into the three months."

"Ah, that means you're writing with your nerves! Now, if I were you, I'd
put the thing aside for six months, clear it out of your head; then,
when you come to it with a fresh mind----"

"You don't like it?" Eric interrupted. "Why not?"

"I don't like it in its present form. I don't suppose you want a
line-by-line criticism. . . . If you look at it in six months' time,
you'll see my objection for yourself."

Eric raise