nly emitted a terrific
bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on
the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant
stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been
turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.

"Take that over again!" shouted Mr. Goble. "Yes, that speech about
life being like a water-melon. It don't sound to me as though it meant
anything." He cocked his cigar at an angle, and listened fiercely. He
clapped his hands. The action stopped again. "Cut it!" said Mr. Goble
tersely.

"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant
stage-director.

"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"

Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr.
Pilkington, wounded to the quick.

"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"

"Well?"

"That is the best epigram in the play."

"The best what?"

"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."

Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want
epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show
business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain
under the vest. All right, get on."

Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of
Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's
custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was
connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the
breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most
of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their
lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's
hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it
was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he
might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the
lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.

Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.

"But, Mr. Goble ...!"

The potentate swung irritably round on him.

"What is it? What _is_ it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"That epigram...."

"It's out!"

"But ...!"

"It's out!"

"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a
voice...."

"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any
old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like!
Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't
come using it here, because I'm the little guy