Chapter VI

The Creams returned to Miss Squibb's on the following evening, and Cream came to see Hinde and John soon after they arrived. Dolly, he said, was too tired after her journey to do more than send a friendly greeting to them.

"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John. "It's very good, of course, quite classy, in fact, but it wants tightening up. Snap! That's what it wants. And a little bit of vulgarity. Oh, not too much. Of course not. But it doesn't do to overlook vulgarity, Mac. We've all got a bit of it in us, and pers'nally, I see no harm in it, _pro_-vided ... _pro-vided_, mind you ... that it's comic. That's the only excuse for vulgarity ... that it's comic. Now, the first thing is the title!"

Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table. "This won't do at all," he said, pointing to the title-page of the play. "_Love's Tribute!_ My dear old Mac, what the hell's the good of a title like that? Where's the snap in it? Where's the attraction, the allurement? Nowhere. A title like that wouldn't draw twopence into a theatre. _Love's Tribute!_ I ask you!..." His feelings made him inarticulate and he gazed round the room in a helpless manner.

"Well, what would you call it?" John demanded.

"Something snappy. I often say a title's half the play. Now, take a piece like _The Girl Who Lost Her Character_ or _The Man With Two Wives_ ... there's a bit of snap about that. Titles like those simply haul 'em into the theatre. _Snap! Go! Ginger!_ Something that sounds 'ot, but isn't ... that's the stuff to give the British public. You make 'em think they're going to see something ... well, _you_ know ... and they'll stand four deep in the snow waiting to get into the theatre. If you were to put the Book of Genesis on the stage and call it _The Girl Who Took The Wrong Turning_, people 'ud think they'd seen something they oughtn't to ... and they'd tell all their friends. Now, how about _The Guilty Woman_ for your sketch, Mac?"

John looked at him in astonishment. "But the woman in it isn't guilty of anything," he protested.

"That doesn't matter. The title needn't have anything to do with it. Very few titles have anything to do with the piece. So long as they're snappy, that's all you need think about. Pers'nally, I like _The Guilty Woman_ myself; but Dolly's keen on _The Sinful Woman_. And that just reminds me, Mac! Here's a tip for you. Always have _Woman_ in your title if you can. _A Sinful Woman_'ll draw better than _A Sinful Man_. People seem to expect women to be more sinful than men when they are sinful ... or p'raps they're more used to men being sinful than women. I dunno. But it's a fact ... _Woman_ in the title is a bigger draw than _Man_. And you got to think of these little things. If you want to make a fortune out of a piece, take my advice and think of a snappy adjective to put in front of _Woman_ or _Girl!_ Really, you know, play-writing's very simple, if you only remember a few tips like that!..."

"But my play isn't about sin at all," John protested.

"Well, what's the good of it then?" Cream demanded. "All plays are about sin of some sort, aren't they? If people aren't breaking a rule or a commandment, there's no plot, and if there's no plot, there's no play. Of course, Bernard Shaw and all these chaps, they don't believe in plots or climaxes or anything, and they turn out pieces that sound as if they'd wrote the first half in their Oxford days and the second half when they were blind drunk. You've got to have a plot, Mac, and if you've got to have a plot, you've got to have sin. What 'ud Hamlet be without the sin in it? Nothing! Why, there wasn't any drama in the world 'til Adam and Eve fell! You take it from me, Mac, there'll be no drama in heaven. Why? Because there'll be no sin there. But there'll be a hell of a lot in hell! Now, I like _The Guilty Woman_. It's not quite so bare-faced as _The Sinful Woman_, but as Dolly likes it better ... she's more intense than I am ... we'll have to have it, I expect!"

"I don't like either of those titles," John said, gulping as he spoke, for he felt that there was a difference of view between Cream and him that could not be overcome.

"Well, think of a better one then," Cream good-naturedly answered. "There's another thing. As I said, the piece wants overhauling, but you can leave that to me. When I've had a good go at it!..."

"But!..."

"Now, look here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had a most unhappy end to _The Profligate_ ... the hero committed suicide in the last act ... but the public wouldn't have it. They said they wanted a happy end, and Pinero had the good sense to give it to them. In my opinion the public was right. The happy end was the right end for that piece!..."

"But artistically!..." John pleaded.

"Artistically!" Cream exclaimed in mocking tones to Hinde. "I ask you! Artistically! What's Art? Pleasing people. That's what Art is!"

"Oh, no," John protested. "Pleasing yourself, perhaps!..."

"And aren't you most pleased when you feel that people are pleased with you, I ask you! What do you publish books for if you only want to please yourself? Why don't you keep your great thoughts to yourself if you don't want to please anybody else? Yah-r-r, this Art talk makes me feel sick. You'd rather sell two thousand copies of a book than two hundred, wouldn't you? Of course, you would. I've heard these highbrow chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few. I acted in a play once by a fellow who was always bleating about the Tasteful Few ... and you should have heard the way he went on when his play only drew the Tasteful Few to see it. If his piece had had a chance of a long run, do you think he'd have stopped it at the end of a month because he objected to long runs as demoralizing to Art? Not likely, my lad!... Now, this piece of yours, Mac, has too much talk in it and not enough incident, see! You'll have to cut some of it. The talk's good, but in plays the talk mustn't take the audience off the point, no matter how good it is. See! You don't want long speeches: you want short ones. The talk ought to be like a couple of chaps sparring ... only not too much fancy work. I've seen a lot of boxing in my time. There's boxers that goes in for what's called pretty work ... nice, neat boxing ... but the spectators soon begin to yawn over it. What people like to see is one chap getting a smack on the jaw and the other chap getting a black eye. And it's the same with everything. Ever seen Cinquevalli balancing a billiard ball on top of another one? Took him years to learn that trick, but he'll tell you himself ... he lives round the corner from here ... that his audiences take more interest in some flashy-looking thing that's dead easy to do. When he throws a cannon-ball up into the air and catches it on the back of his neck ... they think that's wonderful ... but it isn't half so wonderful as balancing one billiard ball on top of another one. See? So it's no good being subtle before simple people. They don't understand you, and they just get up and walk out or give you the bird!..."

"I'm going to tell you something," he continued, as if he had not said a word before. "I've noticed human nature a good deal, and I think I know something about it. There was a sketch we did once, called _The Twiddley Bits_. It was written by the same chap that did _The Girl Who Gets Left_ ... he had a knack, that chap ... only he took to drink and died. There was a joke in _The Twiddley Bits_ that went down everywhere. Here it is. I played the part of a comic footman, and I had to say to the villain, 'What are you looking at, guv'nor?' and he replied, 'I'm wondering what on earth that is!' and then he pointed to my face. That got a laugh to start with. Then I had to say, 'It's my face. What did you think it was? A sardine tin?' That got a roar. Brought the house down, that did. We played that piece all over the world, Mac, and that joke never failed once. Not once. We played it in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and it never missed once. Fetched 'em every time. Human nature's about the same everywhere, once you get to understand it, Mac, and if you like you can put that joke in your play. It'll help it out a bit in the middle!..."

VII

"Well?" said Hinde to John when Cream had left them.

"I'd rather sell happorths of tea and sugar than write the kind of play he wants," John replied.

Hinde paused for a few moments. Then he said, "Why don't you sell tea and sugar. You've got a shop, haven't you?"

"Because I'm going to write books," John answered tartly.

"I see," said Hinde.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER