“None the less, Pottuh,” he said, “why shouldn't you play Othello as a mulatto? I maintain, you see, it would be taking a step in technique; they'd get the face, you see. Then I want you to do something really and truly big: Oedipus. Why not Oedipus? Think of giving the States a thing like Oedipus done as you could do it! Of coss, I don't say you could ever be another Mewnay-Sooyay. No. I don't go that far. You haven't Mewnay-Sooyay's technique. But you could give us just the savour of Attic culture--at least the savour, you see. The mere savour would be something. Why should you keep on producing these cheap little plays they foist on you? Oh, I know you always score a personal success in the wahst of them, but they've never given you a Big character--and the play, outside of you, is always piffle. Of coss, you know what I've always wanted you to do, what I've constantly insisted in print: Rostand. You commission Rostand to do one of his magnificent things for you and we serious men will do our part. Now, my duh good chap, I must be getting on, or the little gel will be telephoning all round the town!” He turned to the door, pausing upon the threshold. “Now, don't let any of these cheap little fellows foist any of their cheap little plays on you. This for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow. Drop the cheap little things and cable Rostand. Tell him I suggested it, if you like.” He disappeared in the hallway, calling back: “My duh Pottuh, good-night!” And the outer door was heard to close.
Canby, feeling a natural prejudice against this personage, glanced uneasily at Talbot Potter's face and was surprised to find that fine bit of modelling contorted with rage. The sight of this emotion was reassuring, but its source was a mystery, for it had seemed to the playwright that the wasp-waisted youth's remarks--though horribly damaging to the cheap little Canbys with their cheap little “Roderick Hanscoms”--were on the whole rather flattering to the subject of them, and betokened a real interest in his career.
Canby exhaled a breath of relief. He began to feel that it might be possible to like this man.
“Ass!” said Potter, striding up and down the room. “Ass! Ass! Ass! Ass!”