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 your show's great. It's got all the mean motives and petty nastinesses of peasants anywhere. I saw it when I was down East last month. But that stuff wouldn't go here. When you put cabots in front of the mystery box they've got to behave as pretty and innocuous as a Christmas card or a magazine cover by Harrison Fisher.

I guess I know. I saw a picture called Golden Dreams.

Well, you saw one of the worst, but that's what they want! I suppose you've got a practical streak in you somewhere so you can turn out masterpieces with your hands and hokum with your feet.

I have no such talent, Ambrose admitted. I don't know how to go about it at all.

Well, I do, averred Philip Lawrence. That's where Phil comes in. So shoot.

Shoot?

Sure. Relate your pretty fable to me and I'll dirty it up for you.

I haven't got any pretty fable, Ambrose confessed helplessly.

Philip Lawrence stared at him in amazement. But they wanted you, didn't they? They must have liked your story to give you a contract.

I never told them a story. They made me sign a