Guy Hammersley; or, Clearing his Name — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GUY HAMMERSLEY. 163 ‘But it may not be as bad as you think,” Guy went on, really wishing that he could pour some balm on the wounded spirit of this sensitive soul. *‘Perhaps the piece is already saved by the last act.” ‘‘Oh, I know better than that, better than any one else can, how highly improbable that is. Why, it was so bad that the audience actually got to laugh- ing in the wrong places. Oh, it was fearful. I got as far back in the box as I could and didn’t dare go out between the acts for fear of the talk about the ‘frightful bore, don’t you know,’ I should hear in the lobby. I really don’t know what's going to become of me.” ‘‘Then you had staked everything on the success of this play,” said Guy, who naturally just at present looked at all the evils that might befall mankind from a financial standpoint. ‘‘ Will the loss be very heavy ?” | ‘‘Oh, I don’t care a penny about that. My in- come can easily foot the bills. It’s the social side of the thing that just knocks me over. HowcanI go out in society again and hear people whispering to one another, ‘Oh, there goes Shepard. He was the fellow who wrote that play that failed so dismally at the Criterion’? The only thing for me to do is to keep in the dark till I can find something else con- nected with the theater, other than play writing, in which I can interest myself.” On hearing these words a project suddenly shaped itself in Guy’s mind that for an instant almost took ‘Yeomicboo “S (E(@) m