en with jealousy of you.
You are the rising star and I am setting. You can't teach an old dog
new tricks, Carl, my boy."

"That's nonsense, Dupre. I wish you would consider this seriously. It
is because you are so good on the stage that I can't bear to see you
false to your art just to please the gallery. You should be above all
that."

"How can a man be above his gallery--the highest spot in the house?
Talk sense, Carlos, and then I'll listen."

"Yes, you're flippant, simply because you know you're wrong, and dare
not argue this matter soberly. Now she stabs you through the heart----"

"No. False premises entirely. She says something about my wicked heart,
and evidently _intends_ to pierce that depraved organ, but a woman
never hits what she aims at, and I deny that I'm ever stabbed through
the heart. Say in the region or the neighbourhood of the heart, and go
on with your talk."

"Very well. She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a few
minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf,
you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing, you press your
hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward, you call feebly
for help and stumble against the sofa, which you fall upon, and,
finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you
kick out once or twice, your clinched hand comes with a thud on the
boards, and all is over."

"Admirably described, Carlos. Lord! I wish my audience paid such
attention to my efforts as you do. Now you claim this is all wrong, do
you?"

"All wrong."

"Suppose she stabbed you, what would _you_ do?"

"I would plunge forward on my face--dead."

"Great heavens! What would become of your curtain?"

"Oh, hang the curtain!"

"It's all very well for you to maledict the curtain, Carl, but you must
work up to it. Your curtain would come down, and your friends in the
gallery wouldn't know what had happened. Now I go through the
evolutions you so graphically describe, and the audience gets time to
take in the situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'that
villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to
enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking
care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the
stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph
that goes up is something delicious to hear."

"That's just the point, Dupre. I claim the act