he
waiter once more, and then go ahead as hard as you like with it. I'll
be the dog."

I read my little play lovingly, and, I fear, not without some
elocution. There was one scene in it that I believed in greatly. The
comedy swiftly rises into thrilling and unexpectedly developed drama.
Capt. Marchmont suddenly becomes cognizant that his wife is an
unscrupulous adventuress, who has deceived him from the day of their
first meeting. The rapid and mortal duel between them from that
moment--she with her magnificent lies and siren charm, winding about
him like a serpent, trying to recover her lost ground; he with his
man's agony and scorn and lost faith, trying to tear her from his
heart. That scene I always thought was a crackerjack. When Capt.
Marchmont discovers her duplicity by reading on a blotter in a mirror
the impression of a note that she has written to the Count, he raises
his hand to heaven and exclaims: "O God, who created woman while Adam
slept, and gave her to him for a companion, take back Thy gift and
return instead the sleep, though it last forever!"

"Rot," said Hollis, rudely, when I had given those lines with proper
emphasis.

"I beg your pardon!" I said, as sweetly as I could.

"Come now," went on Hollis, "don't be an idiot. You know very well
that nobody spouts any stuff like that these days. That sketch went
along all right until you rang in the skyrockets. Cut out that
right-arm exercise and the Adam and Eve stunt, and make your captain
talk as you or I or Bill Jones would."

"I'll admit," said I, earnestly (for my theory was being touched upon),
"that on all ordinary occasions all of us use commonplace language to
convey our thoughts. You will remember that up to the moment when the
captain makes his terrible discovery all the characters on the stage
talk pretty much as they would, in real life. But I believe that I am
right in allowing him lines suitable to the strong and tragic situation
into which he falls."

"Tragic, my eye!" said my friend, irreverently. "In Shakespeare's day
he might have sputtered out some high-cockalorum nonsense of that sort,
because in those days they ordered ham and eggs in blank verse and
discharged the cook with an epic. But not for B'way in the summer of
1905!"

"It is my opinion," said I, "that great human emotions shake up our
vocabulary and leave the words best suited to express them on top. A
sudden violent grief or loss or disappointment will