see what changes you have been able to make in the second and
third acts. I should like to look at them before deciding to put
on another play I have been considering.

Hastily y'rs,

Tal't Potter.




VI


Canby walked fast, the clamorous dining-room seeming to pursue
him, and the thought of what figure he had cut there filling him
with horror of himself, though he found a little consolation in
wondering if he hadn't insulted Miss Cornish because he was a
genius and couldn't help doing queer things. That solace was
slight, indeed; Canby was only twenty-seven, but he was
frightened.

The night before he had been as eagerly happy as a boy at
Christmas Eve. He had finished his last day at the office, and
after initiating the youth who was to take his desk, had parted
with his employer genially, but to the undeniable satisfaction
of both. The new career, opening so gloriously, a month earlier,
with Talbot Potter's acceptance of the play, was thus definitely
adopted, and no old one left to fall back upon. And Madison
Avenue, after dark, shows little to reassure a new playwright