Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/63

 "I worked the best part of a year on that play," he almost sobs to me. "I starved and slaved in composing it, and now, by heaven, I have to buy tickets to see my masterpiece, with another's name on it as its author! It's driving me insane!'

"Well, why didn't you think of that when you sold your frolic?" I says, but I'm really a bit upset myself. "You took seventy-five hundred dollars for it and Mr. Tower took all the chances. Suppose it had been a flop, would you have given him back his money?"

"I'll give him back his paltry seventy-five hundred now!" raves Robert. "Why, 'An Illegal Crime' will make that in royalties within a few weeks. I'll make him take back his gold and return my play! It's my greatest effort and I demand the fame and prestige it will give me and which is my right. Oh, whatever possessed me to enter into such an indecent, immoral bargain—to sell the child of my brain! I may never again compose such a plot. I'll have to start all over again. I"

"Be still!" I butt in. "You got everybody in the lobby looking at you! As long as I started this, I'll try and finish it. I'll talk this over with Mr. Tower today. Remember, I promise nothing, but I'll do my best!"

"Straighten this out and you will never regret it," says Robert frantically. "My career now rests in your pretty hands!"