If it won't buy tickets,
you haven't got a play; you've only got some typewriting."
Canby glanced involuntarily at the blue-covered manuscript he
had placed upon a table beside him. It had a guilty look.
"I get confused," he said. "If the public's so flighty, why does
it take so much stock in what these wolves print about a play?"
"Print. That's it," old Tinker answered serenely. "Write your
opinion in a letter or say it with your mouth, and it doesn't
amount to anything. Print's different. You see some nonsense
about yourself in a newspaper, and you think I'm an idiot for
believing it. But you read nonsense about me, and you believe
it. You don't stop and think; 'That's a lie; he isn't that sort
of a man.' No. You just wonder why I'm such a darn fool."
"Then these cannibals have got us where--"
"Dotage!" Talbot Potter broke in, halting under the chandelier.
"Tinker's reached his dotage!" He levelled a denouncing forefinger
at the manager. "Do you mean to tell me that if I decide to go on
with Mr. Canby's play any critic or combination or cabal of critics
can keep it from being a success? Then I tell you, you're in your
dotage! For one point, if I play this part they're going to say it's
a big thing; I don't mean the play, of course, because you must
know, yourself, Mr.
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