Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/276

"By God, they sha'n't!" he cried. "I'll put this thing up to the author. Where's Sampson?"

"He's not here. For heaven's sake, man, don't get in a state. Everything's all right."

"Everything's all right!" he repeated, bitterly. "Yes, everything's lovely. Let's 'lift it into the domain of comedy'. But if you see Fagan, tell him to keep away from me."

I begged him to rest until dinner-time. I went into his room with him, made him lie down on the bed, rang for a bottle of ice water, and left him there. Then I went downstairs and wrote a couple of letters. I was just leaving the hotel when I met Fagan coming in. He stopped me to ask if I had taken care to put his name on the playbill as director. I had. If the show was a flop, I at least wanted his name attached as a participial cause.

I wandered uneasily about the busy streets until theatre time. I couldn't have been more nervous if I had been going on the boards myself. I spent part of the time prowling about trying to see how much "Obedience" paper I could find on the billboards and in shop windows. I stopped in at a lunchroom and had some supper. The place reminded me of the little café in Jamaica where Sylvia and Edwards and I had eaten together.