out it in
his dressing-room one night, and I charged around a bit. He did rattle
me! Then I rattled him. I would get an answer out of him. He said:

"'I'm not in the habit of being cross-examined in my own
dressing-room.'

"I didn't care what happened then, so I said:

"'And I'm not in the habit of being treated as you're treating me.'

"All of a sudden he became quite quiet, and patted me on the shoulder.
'You're getting on very well, Sachs,' he said. 'You've only been at it
one year. It's taken me twenty-five years to get where I am.'

"However, I was too angry to stand for that sort of talk. I said to
him:

"'I daresay you're a very great and enviable man, Mr. Florance, but
I propose to save fifteen years on your twenty-five. I'll equal or
better your position in ten years.'

"He shoved me out--just shoved me out of the room.... It was that that
made me turn to play-writing. Florance wrote his own plays sometimes,
but it was only his acting and his face that saved them. And they were
too American. He never did really well outside America except in one
play, and that wasn't his own. Now I was out after money. And I still
am. I wanted to please the largest possible public. So I guessed there
was nothing for it but the universal appeal. I never write a play that
won't appeal to England, Germany, France just as well as to America.
America's big, but it isn't big enough for me.... Well, as I was
saying, soon after that I got a one-act play produced at Hannibal,
Missouri. And the same week there was a company at another theatre
there playing the old man's 'Forty-Niners.' And the next morning the
theatrical critic's article in the Hannibal _Courier-Post_ was headed:
'Rival attractions. Archibald Florance's "Forty-Niners" and new play
by Seven Sachs.' I cut that heading out and sent it to the old man in
London, and I wrote under it, 'See how far I've got in six months.'
When he came back he took me into his company again.... What price
that, eh?"

Edward Henry could only nod his head. The customarily silent Seven
Sachs had little by little subdued him to an admiration as mute as it
was profound.

"Nearly five years after that I got a Christmas card from old
Florance. It had the usual printed wishes--'Merriest possible
Christmas and so on'--but, underneath that, Archibald had written in
pencil, 'You've still five years to go.' That made me roll my sleeves
up, as you may say. Well, a long time after that I was stan