VII
TWO VERDICTS
After graduation came Tommy.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” remarked Dorothy. "Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“I haven’t been keeping myself,” answered Tommy, “I’ve been living at home.”
“You were writing a play, weren’t you?”
Tommy smiled deprecatingly.
“Oh, yes!” he said, as though that were to end the parley.
“When will we see it?”
Tommy asked permission to smoke a pipe. His plays were like vacation snapshots. They never turned out.
"You'll see it eventually, I suppose," he went on casually. "Several people are interested in it. You know as much about that as I do. I suppose you'll be renting Aeolian Hall next and becoming one of the season's most popular recitalists."
"I don't know. I've received an offer from a manager."
"But you don't mean to say you're going to appear under the generous auspices of the Harmony Concert Bureau!"
Tommy launched this languidly, apparently examining the coloring of his pipe as he spoke.
"I never told you anything about that! How do you know?"
"One picks up things here and there, knocking about doing feature stories. I did a little piece exposing that crowd a few months ago. Probably you didn't read it."
[81]
