The
attitude was not wholly devoid of pathos, to Canby's view of it.
Neither was the careworn, harried face, unharmoniously topped by
a green hat so sparklingly jaunty, not only in colour but in its
shape and the angle of its perch, that it was outright
hilarious, and, above the face of Packer, made the playwright
think pityingly of a St. Patrick's Day party holding a noisy
celebration upon a hearse.
Its wearer nodded solemnly as the elevator bounced up, flashing,
and settled to the level of the floor; but the quick drop
through the long shaft seemed to do the stage-manager a
disproportionate amount of good. Halfway down he emitted a heavy
"Whew!" of relief and threw back his shoulders. He seemed to
swell, to grow larger; lines verged into the texture of his
face, disappearing; and with them went care and seeming years.
Canby had casually taken him to be about forty, but so radical
was the transformation of him that, as the distance from his
harrowing overlord increased, the playwright beheld another
kind of creature. In place of the placative, middle-aged varlet,
troubled and hurrying to serve, there stepped out of the
elevator, at the street level, a deep-chested, assertive, manly
adventurer, about thirty, kindly eyed, picturesque, and
careless.
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