copyist was on the cover. I hastened to the lady, and inquired about the
manuscript from which she had made the copy. I showed her some of my
penmanship, but she assured me the manuscript was in another hand. I ran
home, and demanded the original manuscript from Bagley. 'Oh, certainly,'
he said, and fished out a manuscript in his own writing. He had copied
even my interlineations and erasures, to give his manuscript the look of
an original draft. This was the copy from which the typewriter had
worked. My own handwritten copy he had destroyed. I have sometimes
thought that when the idea first occurred to him of submitting my play to
the actor, he had meant to deal fairly with me, and to profit only by an
agent's commission. But he may have inquired about the earnings of plays,
and learned how much money a successful one brings; and the discovery may
have tempted him to the fraud. Or his design may have been complete from
the first. It is easy to understand his desire to become the sole owner
of the play. Why he wanted to figure as the author is not so clear. It
may have been mere vanity; it may have been--more probably was--a desire
to keep to himself even the author's prestige, to serve him in future
transactions of the same sort. In any case, he had created evidence of
his authorship, and destroyed all existing proof of mine. He had made
good terms,--a percentage on a sliding scale; one thousand dollars down
on account. It was out of that thousand that he paid me the five hundred.
The play was a great money-winner; Bagley's earnings from it were more
than twenty thousand dollars in two seasons. That is the sum I should
have had if I had submitted the play to the same actor, as I had intended
to do. I made a stir in the newspapers for awhile; told my tale to
managers and actors and reporters; started to take it to the courts, but
had to give up for lack of funds; in short, got myself the name, as I
told you today, of a man with a grievance. People smiled tolerantly at my
story; it got to be one of the jokes of the Rialto. Bagley soon hit on
the policy of claiming the authorship to my face, and pretending to treat