Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/251

But that's not all of it. Fagan hates me personally. He'll get me out of the company if he possibly can. He can do it, of course: he has Upton's ear." He sat a moment, one eyebrow twitching nervously. Suddenly he cried out, in a quivering, passionate voice which horrified and frightened me:

"I've got to play Dunbar! It's my only chance. Everything depends upon it."

Such an outcry, in a man usually so trained a master of himself, was pitiful. I was truly shocked, and yet I was almost on the verge of nervous laughter, I remember, when the idiotic old spinster in the next room pounded lustily on the wall. I suppose she thought we were revelling. I could see that he needed to talk. I tried to soothe him with some commonplace words and a cigarette.

"No," he said, "I know what I'm talking about. Fagan hates me. No need to go into details. He directed 'After Dinner,' you know—and massacred it. We had a row then . . . he tried to bully a girl in the company . . . I threatened to thrash him. He hasn't forgotten, of course. He passed the word round then that I ruined the show. If this were any other play I'd have walked out as soon as I saw him. But