"You'd better sit down," the manager advised him. "Going plumb
crazy never helped anything yet that I know of."

"But, good heavens! How can I--"

"Sh!" whispered Tinker.

A tragic figure made its appearance upon the threshold of the
inner doorway: Potter, his face set with epic woe, gloom burning
in his eyes like the green fire in a tripod at a funeral of
state. His plastic hair hung damp and irregular over his white
brow--a wreath upon a tombstone in the rain--and his garment,
from throat to ankle, was a dressing-gown of dead black,
embroidered in purple; soiled, magnificent, awful. Beneath its
midnight border were his bare ankles, final testimony to his
desperate condition, for only in ultimate despair does a
suffering man remove his trousers. The feet themselves were
distractedly not of the tableau, being immersed in bedroom shoes
of gay white fur shaped in a Romeo pattern; but this was the
grimmest touch of all--the merry song of mad Ophelia.

"Mr. Potter!" the playwright began, "I--"

Potter turned without a word and disappeared into the room
whence he came.

"Mr. Potter!" Canby started to follow. "Mr. Pot--"

"Sh!" whispered Tinker.