Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/163

137 MR. GRANVILLE BARKER AND AN ALIBI 137 . . . Once let me get this Repertory Theatre actually under way, a sound, solid, healthy, going concern, and you'll see me back at my desk like a shot. I've a half- finished play lying there now — the best idea I've had yet, I almost think — it tempts me terribly this minute, and I would like nothing better than to be at it hammer-and- tongs, out of reach of all these telephones and typewriters, my oak sported stubbornly day after day. . . ." That alone, of course, though extraordinarily in- teresting, would not quite suffice to convince us — people do get such queer ideas about their penmanship. The real proof is the penmanship itself. It is on that one relies. Open Three Plays judiciously. Now, what is the first thing that catches your eye? Probably a certain significant little typographical, bibliographical, detail — certain little tickets bearing the dates of the composition of each play which have been lovingly tacked to the titles. They read like this: — THE MARRYING OF ANN LEETE. 1899. THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE. 1903-5. WASTE. 1906-7. There you have a clue of real importance. For all through those years, as no playgoer has yet forgotten, Mr. Barker was triumphantly pursuing his irresistible Courtship in Sloane Square ; he was being subjected to the most stimulating imaginable temptations to exchange all his energy for the multiplying rewards that met his acting and producing. Yet in spite of these seductions, as these successive dates disclose, he was stealing back to his obscure desk and his pen ;