Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/122

120 "The show sounds impossible, Howard," Henry was saying. Two points of red showed darkly beside his cheek bones. Howard Vee was a college man. Therefore, Henry tried to broad-a him, mixing blends of Americanism and Oxford "o's" with careless grammar.

"I come from Philadelphia, Kansas," Henry tolerantly explained. "My taste is plain. I'm the average American theatre-goer. And what's more, I'm a member of the theatrical G.A.R. I don't like your libretto. I don't like your score. In my forty years on Broadway I've never liked a show I couldn't understand.

"Mind you," he continued, clipping the end of his cigar with his teeth and dropping it into his silver-plated spittoon—gift of the fourth road-show company of "Yvonne." "Mind you, I believe you are clever. But you are doing too much. No one man—except George M. Cohan—can write an entire musical show himself.

"Let me be a father to you."

"I don't need a father, Mr. Colman," said Howard. "I have one."

"Mike Vee knows costumes. He is the greatest costumer on Broadway. He adores you and I love him. But I'll be damned, pardon the language—if you are going to put a rank amateur show, a wild burlesquey entertainment, in the Commodore, because your father has bags full of mazuma."

Howard was very young. He seemed mild and inoffensive sitting there in the red plush settee. His dark eyes revealed his puzzled embarrassment, his finely drawn mouth trembled in an attempt to find words with which to reply to the older man.

"I respect your judgment, Mr. Colman," he said,