ke. Our friend would produce his version and
reap a rich harvest; ours would disappear. If by any unlikely chance
discussion should arise, the advertisement would be to his advantage. So
soon as possible we would replace it by a new piece altogether. A young
man of my genius could surely write something better than hotch-potch
such as this; experience was all that I had lacked. As regarded
one's own conscience, was not the world's honesty a mere question of
convention? Had he been a young man, and had we diddled him out of his
play for a ten-pound note, we should have been applauded as sharp men of
business. The one commandment of the world was: Don't get found out. The
whole trouble, left alone, would sink and fade. Later, we should tell it
as a good joke--and be laughed with.

So I fell from mine own esteem. Vane helping me--and he had brains--I
set feverishly to work. I am glad to remember that every line I wrote
was born in misery. I tried to persuade Vane to let me make a new
play altogether, which I offered to give him for nothing. He expressed
himself as grateful, but his frequently declared belief in my dramatic
talent failed to induce his acceptance.

"Later on, my dear Kelver," was his reply. "For the present this is
doing very well. Going on as we are, we shall soon improve it out of all
recognition, while at the same time losing nothing that is essential.
All your ideas are excellent."

By the end of about three weeks we had got together a concoction that,
so far as dialogue and characters were concerned, might be said to
be our own. There was good work in it, here and there. Under other
conditions I might have been proud of much that I had written. As it
was, I experienced only the terror of the thief dodging the constable:
my cleverness might save me; it afforded me no further satisfaction.
My humour, when I heard the people laughing at it, I remembered I had
forged listening in vague fear to every creak upon the stairs, wondering
in what form discovery might come upon me. There was one speech,
addressed by the hero to the villain: "Yes, I admit it; I do love her.
But there is that which I love better--my self-respect!" Stepping down
to the footlights and slapping his chest (which according to stage
convention would appear to be a sort of moral jewel-box bursting with
assorted virtues), our juvenile lead--a gentleman who led a somewhat
rabbit-like existence, perpetually diving down openings to avoid serv