e time," said the dishevelled Canby, coming
forward. "I supposed it was my business to be here, but-"

"Very glad to have you if you wish," Potter interrupted gloomily. "Any
time. Any time you like. I was just telling Mr. Tinker that I don't know
about your play. I don't know if it'll do at all."

"If you'd play it," Canby began, "the way I wrote it--"

"In the first place," Potter said with sudden vehemence, "it lacks
Punch! Where's your Punch in this play, Mr. Canby? Where is there any
Punch whatever in the whole four acts? Surely, after this rehearsal, you
don't mean to claim that the first act has one single ounce of Punch in
it!"

"But you've twisted this act all round," the unhappy young man
protested. "The way you have it I can't tell what it's got to it. I
meant Roderick Hanscom to be a disagr--"

"Mr. Canby," said the star, rising impressively, "if we played that act
the way you wrote it, we'd last just about four minutes of the opening
night. You gave me absolutely nothing to do! Other people talked at me
and I had to stand there and be talked at for twenty minutes straight,
like a blithering ninny!"

"Well, as you have it, the other actors have to stand there like
ninnies," poor Canby retorted miserably, "while you talk at them almost
the whole time."

"My soul!" Potter struck the table with the palm of his hand. "Do
you think anybody's going to pay two dollars to watch me listen to my
company for three hours? No, my dear man, your play's got to give me
something to do! You'll have to rewrite the second and third acts. I've
done what I could for the first, but, good God! Mr. Canby, I can't write
your whole play for you! You'll have to get some Punch into it or we'll
never be able to go on with it."

"I don't know what you mean," said the playwright helplessly. "I never
did know what people mean by Punch."

"Punch? It's what grips 'em," Potter returned with vehemence. "Punch
is what keeps 'em sitting on the edge of their seats. Big love scenes!
They've got Punch. Or a big scene with a man. Give me a big scene with a
man." He illustrated his meaning with startling intensity, crouching and
seizing an imaginary antagonist by the throat, shaking him and snarling
between his clenched teeth, while his own throat swelled and reddened:
"Now, damn you! You dog! So on, so on, so on! Zowie!" Suddenly his
figure straightened. "Then change. See?" He became serene, almost
august. "'No! I will not soil these hands