nie' for E. and K., I
told that author if he came on my stage any more at rehearsals I would
biff him one in the nutt, and I meant it, too. His thinks and mine ran
into each other so bad that I was near crazed."

"But an author writes a play and he or she knows--" Miss Adair was
beginning to say to Mr. Rooney with kind patience, when he interrupted
her as he rose to take his departure.

"The author oughter write all he knows and let it go at that," he said
as he spat on the carpet of the box with no sign of compunction. "The
stage-manager can do the rest." And with no form of leave-taking he
departed.

"And the American drama has to be filtered through that sort of--of
illiteracy?" Miss Adair turned and demanded of Mr. Vandeford.

"The American drama is often written by people who have been too closely
associated with books on a library shelf, so that it needs to be
filtered through a little gross humanity to get across to--humanity in
the gross, which pays to see it. If a scholar writes and produces a play
scholars go to see it all right, but all the scholars in America only
fill one theater twice, and then what is to become of scholar and wife
and children, as well as producer, manager, and theater-owner?" Mr.
Vandeford spoke slowly, choosing his words.

"Aren't any of the stage-managers educated gentlemen?" demanded Miss
Adair, with an interest that was fast becoming impersonal, for she had
the wit to see that in some ways Mr. Vandeford's summary of the
situation between author and stage-manager was sound.

"Yes, a few, but not the most successful ones," answered Mr. Vandeford.
"I tell you truly that a stage-manager has to be a genius to succeed. He
must be a man with a vision and sheer brutality enough to put the vision
that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into
twenty other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious
whole to an audience. He cannot be a respecter of persons while he is
pounding, and he must not be interfered with or his vision is obscured
and the play loses. Do you see what I mean?"

"Then an author ought to produce his own plays," Miss Adair decided very
promptly.

"Yes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a whimsical smile down into the
eager, pale, intensely creative face raised to his. "When an author is
born who will study years until he is an expert electrician, other years
in great studios until he can paint scenery that is a work of art, delve
into