Carson Tinker was in the elevator at the Pantheon, and the operator was closing the door thereof, about to ascend1, but delayed upon a sound of running footsteps and a call of “Up!” Stewart Canby plunged2 into the cage; his hat, clutched in his hand, disclosing emphatically that he had been at his hair again.
“What's he mean?” he demanded fiercely. “What have I done?”
“What's the matter?” inquired the calm Tinker.
“What's he called it off for?”
“Called what off?”
“The play! My play!”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen him since rehearsal3. His Japanese boy called me on the telephone a little while ago and told me he wanted to see me.”
“He did?” cried the distracted Canby. “The Japanese boy wanted to see—”
“No,” Tinker corrected. “He did.”
“And you haven't heard—”
“Twelfth,” urged the operator, having opened the door. “Twelfth, if you please, gentlemen.”
“I haven't heard anything to cause excitement,” said Tinker, stepping out. “I haven't heard anything at all.” He pressed the tiny disc beside the door of Potter's apartment. “What's upset you?”
With a pathetic gesture Canby handed him Potter's note. “What have I done? What does he think I've done to him?”
Tinker read the note and shook his head. “The Lord knows! You see he's all moods, and they change—they change any time. He knows his business, but you can't count on him. He's liable to do anything—anything at all.”
“But what reason—”
The Japanese boy, Sato, stood bobbing in the doorway4.
“Mis' Potter kassee,” he said courteously5. “Ve'y so'y Mis' Potter kassee nobody.”
“Can't see us?” said Tinker. “Yes, he can. You telephoned me that he wanted to see me, not over a quarter of an hour ago.”
Sato beamed upon him enthusiastically. “Yisso, yisso! See Mis' Tinker, yisso! You come in, Mis' Tinker. Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter kassee nobody.”
“You mean he'll see Mister Tinker but won't see anybody else?” cried the playwright6.
“Yisso,” said Sato, delighted. “Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter kassee nobody.”
“I will see him. I—”
“Wait. It's all right,” Tinker reassured7 him soothingly8. “It's all right, Sato. You go and tell Mr. Potter that I'm here and Mr. Canby came with me.”
“Yisso.” Sato stood back from the door obediently, and they passed into the hall. “You sidowm, please.”
“Tell him we're waiting in here,” said Tinker, leading the way into the cream-coloured salon9.
“Yisso.” Sato disappeared.
The pretty room was exquisitely10 cheerful, a coal fire burning rosily11 in the neat little grate, but for its effect upon Canby it might have been a dentist's anteroom. He was unable to sit, and began to pace up and down, shampooing himself with both hands.
“I've racked my brains every step of the way here,” he groaned12. “All I could think of was that possibly I've unconsciously paralleled some other play that I never saw. Maybe someone's told him about a plot like mine. Such things must happen—they do happen, of course—because all plots are old. But I can't believe my treatment of it could be so like—”
“I don't think it's that,” said Tinker. “It's never anything you expect—with him.”
“Well, what else can it be?” the playwright demanded. “I haven't done anything to offend him. What have I done that he should—”
“You'd better sit down,” the manager advised him. “Going plumb13 crazy never helped anything yet that I know of.”
“But, good heavens! How can I—”
“Sh!” whispered Tinker.
A tragic14 figure made its appearance upon the threshold of the inner doorway: Potter, his face set with epic15 woe16, gloom burning in his eyes like the green fire in a tripod at a funeral of state. His plastic hair hung damp and irregular over his white brow—a wreath upon a tombstone in the rain—and his garment, from throat to ankle, was a dressing-gown of dead black, embroidered17 in purple; soiled, magnificent, awful. Beneath its midnight border were his bare ankles, final testimony18 to his desperate condition, for only in ultimate despair does a suffering man remove his trousers. The feet themselves were distractedly not of the tableau19, being immersed in bedroom shoes of gay white fur shaped in a Romeo pattern; but this was the grimmest touch of all—the merry song of mad Ophelia.
“Mr. Potter!” the playwright began, “I—”
Potter turned without a word and disappeared into the room whence he came.
“Mr. Potter!” Canby started to follow. “Mr. Pot—”
“Sh!” whispered Tinker.
Potter appeared again upon the threshold In one hand he held a large goblet20; in the other a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, just opened. With solemn tread he approached a delicate table, set the goblet upon it, and lifted the bottle high above.
“I am in no condition to talk to anybody,” he said hoarsely21. “I am about to take my first drink of spirits in five years.”
And he tilted22 the bottle. The liquor clucked and guggled, plashed into the goblet, and splashed upon the table; but when he set the bottle down the glass was full to its capacious brim, and looked, upon the little “Louis Sixteenth” table, like a sot at the Trianon. Potter stepped back and pointed23 to it majestically24.
“That,” he said, “is the size of the drink I am about to take!”
“Mr. Potter,” said Canby hotly, “will you tell me what's the matter with my play? Haven't I made every change you suggested? Haven't—”
Potter tossed his arms above his head and flung himself full length upon the chaise lounge.
“STOP it!” he shouted. “I won't be pestered25. I won't! Nothing's the matter with your play!”
“Then what—”
Potter swung himself round to a sitting position and hammered with his open palm upon his knee for emphasis: “Nothing's the matter with it, I tell you! I simply won't play it!”
“Why not?”
“I simply won't play it! I don't like it!”
The playwright dropped into a chair, open-mouthed. “Will you tell me why you ever accepted it?”
“I don't like any play! I hate 'em all! I'm through with 'em all! I'm through with the whole business! 'Show-business!' Faugh!”
Old Tinker regarded him thoughtfully, then inquired: “Gone back on it?”
“I tell you I'm going to buy a farm!” He sprang up, went to the mantel and struck it a startling blow with his fist, which appeared to calm him somewhat—for a moment. “I've been thinking of it for a long time. I ought never to have been in this business at all, and I'm going to live in the country. Oh, I'm in my right mind!” He paused to glare indignantly in response to old Tinker's steady gaze. “Of course you think 'something's happened' to upset me. Well, nothing has. Nothing of the slightest consequence has occurred since I saw you at rehearsal. Can't a man be allowed to think? I just came home here and got to thinking of the kind of life I lead—and I decided26 that I'm tired of it. And I'm not going to lead it any longer. That's all.”
“Ah,” said Tinker quietly. “Nerves.”
Talbot Potter appealed to the universe with a passionate<............