"I don't know what you mean," said the playwright helplessly. "I
never did know what people mean by Punch."

"Punch? It's what grips 'em," Potter returned with vehemence.
"Punch is what keeps 'em sitting on the edge of their seats. Big
love scenes! They've got Punch. Or a big scene with a man. Give
me a big scene with a man." He illustrated his meaning with
startling intensity, crouching and seizing an imaginary
antagonist by the throat, shaking him and snarling between his
clenched teeth, while his own throat swelled and reddened: "Now,
damn you! You dog! So on, so on, so on! Zowie!" Suddenly his
figure straightened. "Then change. See?" He became serene,
almost august. "'No! I will not soil these hands with you. So
on, so on, so on. I give you your worthless life. Go!'" He
completed his generosity by giving Canby and Tinker the smile,
after which he concluded much more cheerfully: "Something like
that, Mr. Canby, and we'll have some real Punch in your play."

"But there isn't any chance for that kind of a scene in it," the
playwright objected. "It's the study of an egoist, a disagree--"

"There!" exclaimed Potter. "That's it! Do you think people are
going to pay two dollars to see Talbot Potter behave like a cad?
They won't do it; they pay two dollars to see me as I am--not
pretending to be the kind of man your 'Roderick Hanscom' was.
No, Mr. Canby, I accepted your play because it has got quite a
fair situation in the third act, and because I thought I saw a
chance in it to keep some of the strength of 'Roderick Hanscom'
and yet make him lovable."