THE PLOT OF A PLAY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 15 June 1907, Page 3

THE PLOT OF A PLAY.

The man drove his ball from the fifth tee, and walked 011 with the girl in the white linen frock.

"Fill writing a play myself," he said defiantly. 'I hey had becu quarrelli'"!?; over the merits of "Candida." ' "So t night to kuov .' She swung her pink sunshade round, and looked at him reproachfully.

"I knew some calamity was certain Winer or l-,tcr" she sighed. "It come, to all my young men. The last wro.,-

Nic verses." "1 write verses myself," he saidone verse at a time. Whenever ) try to do a wfccoml verse of one poem I get piiidv and have to stop. I hey sat down beneath the (reus while ihe caddies for golf-halls l-st Hie gorse. They hud previouslv dr. covered the shadows of those trees and (he aptitude of the gorse for secreting golf-halls. Ro hod the caddies. 'Tell me about that, play." she said spreading her frock out and giving hit.' the sunshade, to hold.

Ahc - trouble is there's enough in U for three nets, and I want to get it i,t[f

i *' ll! with most playa is," six • murmured,"that they have barely enough for one act, and the authors write thre- " '■There was an actor here I told aliout my play, and he said the situation was a <at. fao it is. 'i here aren't many m - ii 11 the stage eoulil satisfy it. Fellow trices a poison that acts slo\vly-n» on lid/.r— and tbev discovers that the cause Of hi' despair is removed. There y ou M\C; it. Han knows he must die. Standi; »i!h the woman he thought lost to him r .'.dy to surrender her heart. And he 'fi-.uvs that he must die. That's the PNlain.'

' » ou II have the, eurLain black for (lie 'i<k( ol artislie aiienities, I suppnst ' sue suggested amiably. "But tell me th•\dan li society in Ivew York. Boulevardian. ioungisli. Enough money to the thing well. ),„ves a girl. But. llie girl is obdurate. Man makes a bail break, comes a cropper, loses his money Tid leaves New York for the Wild West. Resolves to bury himself from the world. He stopped for breath, and lit a cigar-' ['tie. ;

I What sort of a man was lie?" "Oh, just ordinary," he said vaguely. (>ood fellow. Idle. Fond of pleasure. 'Thought luxury essential to happiness." "Well, when he got to the West!" "That's in the second act," lia explained. "It's a town Of the wildest and wooliest sort.. He gets work with a country attorney and boards with a widow—who has a daughter. Young, healthy, buxom. Pretty in a bovine way. But the man is exceedingly unhappy." "It was the cooking," he said. 1 lint explains it," she admitted. "And the lack of the clubs and Broadway/' lie added.

"Poor dear," "she sighed. "Ite takes it badly, anyhow. At first he feels the degradation, the awful comuioness of it, but as the months go on " '■'ln the sTcond act!" ''That's a difficulty," lie admitted. "But I'm only reciting the plot now. As the months go on," lie resumed, "he forgets his old life completely, and falls in love." He paused. "Go on," she said. "With the daughtor or the widow?" "Don't laugh at me-with the daughter." 8 "Why not end it there?" "IWmise ho. has to go to New York igain, for (ho attorney. It's a big ease, md lie 'does himself well.' Gets back to everything that ever went with evenng dress.' He meets the girl again. She s still unmarried, Rut he is poor. They «i,-| id tears. He returns VVest, to the j ooardiiig-honse. the widow and his betro'"'d. He evades her caresses. Refuses Mipper—faugh!— and goes to his room, le can't sleep . He gets up, puts on ■veiling dress, and takes that slow poison one tabloid. Waits. Audience breathless."

He hesitated, his face, glowing. It would bo," she admitted. ' Then in course a messenger. Telegram to say that rich uncle hag died leaving him a fortune. Then The Girl comes in and tells him they eanuot" be parted. "From New lYork ?" she exclaimed. ( ihci'e you go again," he complained. "J hey do those things in plays." He licsilated. She hesitated. "Jfan doesn't know what to do" ho went on. "He cannot- get rid of her. The awlul tragedy of it shows ill his face. I'hat's where (he fine acting is needed." "It would lie," she said. "Ami as he stands there doomed | knowing thai all the desires ofhis heart and lib' arc oil'ered to him just .when he has cut them all olV"—he paused for ofI'i'ci --'Yurlilin falls.'' "Koinetliing had to," H ni<l the girl in ihe white frock. "rs„|, what was the girl like?" '•r can see her very elcarlv," he answered, gazing at her. "She was like—" I declare," fried the girl in the white truck. rising suddenly, "those caddies are lifting down behind that hedge." "They might bo dead for all I earc," ?aid the man. Hugh O'Ncil, in Cosmopolitan.