He was dizzy with the exaltation of that purity, but he got
himself to say:
"I'm kind of stuck on the first part of the play, Miss Nelly.
Please tell me how you think the heroine would speak to her dad.
Would she call him `papa' or `sir,' do you think?"
"Why--let me see--"
"They're such awful high society--"
"Yes, that's so. Why, I should think she'd say `sir.' Maybe oh,
what was it I heard in a play at the Academy of Music?
`Father, I have come back to you!'"
"Sa-a-ay, that's a fine line! That'll get the crowd going right
from the first.... I _told_ you you'd help me a lot."
"I'm awfully glad if I _have_ helped you," she said, earnestly.
Good night--and good, "awfully glad, but luck with the play.
Good night."
"Good night. Thank you a lot, Miss Nelly. Church in the
morning, remember! Good night."
"Good night."
As it is well known that all playwrights labor with toy theaters
before them for working models, Mr. Wrenn ran to earth a fine
unbroken pasteboard box in which a ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock
had recently arrived.
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