Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/266

"I understand that Fagan is a ruffian."

"Fagan—Oh, I don't mean Fagan." He paused and looked at the wet point of his pen. "I was just writing a note to Sampson," he said. He hesitated a moment, and then tore the written sheet across several times and dropped it in the basket.

"Oh, hell," he said. "I can't appeal to Sampson again. I'll have to work it out myself.—Don't imagine I take Fagan too seriously. Fagan is only an accident. A tragic accident. That's part of my weird, as the Scotch say. I mean, you'll understand better about Dunbar."

I didn't quite understand, and said nothing.

"I wouldn't let a man like Fagan stand between me and Dunbar," he said. "It's in the hands of the author now. You heard what he said. He put Dunbar into the play, he's the only one who can take him out of it."

The next morning Upton broke the news to me that I was to go out as advance man. The opening was set for Providence, only ten days later. There was to be a two-weeks' tour of three-night engagements, and I had to arrange for the publicity, poster-printing, accommodations for the company, and so on. This did not appeal to me very strongly, but I scrambled together a