by a burglar, he says—I do not recall the exact words, but—”
“I do,” said Dawe. “He says: ‘Damn Central; she always cuts me off.’ (And then to his friend) ‘Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t it? Could you get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing on the side.’”
“And again,” continued the editor, without pausing for argument, “when Berenice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he has fled with the manicure girl, her words are—let me see—”
“She says,” interposed the author: “‘Well, what do you think of that!’”
“Absurdly inappropriate words,” said Westbrook, “presenting an anti-climax—plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse yet; they mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialisms when confronted by sudden tragedy.”
“Wrong,” said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. “I say no man or woman ever spouts ‘high-falutin’ talk when they go up against a real climax. They talk naturally and a little worse.”
The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and inside information.
“Say, Westbrook,” said Dawe, pinning him by the lapel, “would you have accepted ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ if you had believed that the actions and words
