" Tinker's face was more cryptic than usual. "Yes, indeed!"
"Power! Haven't I made them eat out of my hand? Look at that
ass--glad to crawl in here and nibble a crust from my table
to-night! Ass!" He had halted for a second in front of the manager,
but resumed his pacing with a mutter of subterranean thunder:
"Mounet-Sully!"
"Hasn't the public got a mind?" cried Canby. "Doesn't the public
understand that a good play might be ruined by these
scoundrels?"
Old Tinker returned his chartreuse glass to the case whence it
came, a miniature sedan chair in silver and painted silk. "The
public?" he said. "I've never been able to find out what that
was. Just about the time I decided it was a trained sheep it
turned out to be a cyclone. You think it's intelligent, and it
plays the fool; you decide it's a fool, and it turns out to
know more than you do. You make love to it, and it may sidle up
and kiss you--or give you a good, hard kick!"
"But if we make this a good play--"
"It won't be a play at all," said Tinker, "unless the public
thinks it's a good one. A play isn't something you read; it's
something actors do on a stage; and they can't afford to do it
unless the public pays to watch 'em.
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