porings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep and powerful emotion—a sense unconsciously acquired from literature and the stage that prompts them to express those emotions in language befitting their importance and histrionic value.”
“And in the name of the seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius, where did the stage and literature get the stunt?” asked Dawe.
“From life,” answered the editor, triumphantly.
The story writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately his dissent.
On a bench nearby a frowzy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived that his moral support was due a downtrodden brother.
“Punch him one, Jack,” he called hoarsely to Dawe. “W’at’s he come makin’ a noise like a penny arcade for amongst gen’lemen that comes in the Square to set and think?”
Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure.
“Tell me,” asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, “what especial faults in ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ caused you to throw it down?”
“When Gabriel Murray,” said Westbrook, “goes to his telephone and is told that his fiancée has been shot
