might have found other resources at the last extremity. My life might
have taken a different course. That is why I say he has been, perhaps,
the reverse of a good angel to me."

"But you must have written other plays," pursued Larcher.

"Yes; and have even had three of them produced. Two had moderate success;
but one of those I sold on low terms, in my eagerness to have it accepted
and establish a name. On the other, I couldn't collect my royalties. The
third was a failure. But none of these, or of any I have written, was up
to the level of the play that Bagley dealt with. I admit that. It was my
one work of first-class merit. I think my poor powers were affected by my
experience with that play; but certainly for some reason I

'... never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture.'

I should have been a different man if I had received the honor and the
profits of that first accepted play of mine."

"I should think that, as Bagley is so rich, he would quietly hand you
over twenty thousand dollars, at least, for the sake of his conscience."

"Men of Bagley's sort have no conscience where money is concerned. I used
to wonder just what share of his fortune was rightly mine, if one knew
how to estimate. It was my twenty thousand dollars he invested; what
percentage of the gains would belong to me, giving him his full due for
labor and skill? And then the credit of the authorship,--which he flatly
robbed me of,--what would be its value? But that is all matter for mere
speculation. As to the twenty thousand alone, there can be no doubt."