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“But what reason–“

The Japanese boy, Sato, stood bobbing in the doorway.

“Mis’ Potter kassee,” he said courteously. “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 playwright.

“Yisso,” said Sato, delighted. “Ve’y so’y. Mis’ Potter kassee nobody.”

“I will see him. I–“

“Wait. It’s all right,” Tinker reassured him soothingly. “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 salon.

“Yisso.” Sato disappeared.

The pretty room was exquisitely cheerful, a coal fire burning rosily 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 groaned. “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 plumb crazy never helped anything yet that I know of.”

“But, good heavens! How can I–“

“Sh!” whispered Tinker.

A tragic figure made its appearance upon the threshold of the inner doorway: Potter, his face set with epic woe, 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, embroidered in purple; soiled, magnificent, awful. Beneath its midnight border were his bare ankles, final testimony to his desperate condition, for only in ultimate despair does a suffering man remove his trousers. The feet themselves were distractedly not of the tableau, 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 goblet; 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 hoarsely. “I am about to take my first drink of spirits in five years.”

And he tilted 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 pointed to it majestically.

“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 pestered. I won’t! Nothing’s the matter with your play!”