He is cautious, and dismisses the subject for a few weeks, perhaps to think it over again at odd moments--at his club, over his dinner, in his _coupé_ or at his office. Meanwhile the play is lying on his desk or in the safe, and an outraged author is consuming himself with disappointment and bitterness, demanding an answer from day to day and being put off so often that at last he insults the manager and reclaims his manuscript. But, supposing that the author is patient and lets the matter take its necessarily tedious course, and that finally the manager accepts the play and signs a contract for its production, it may still be months or years before an opening can be found for it. At some time or other a date is fixed for it, however; it is underlined in the bills and mentioned to the critics, and the practical work of building up the acting drama from the manuscript is now begun. One of the staff revises the stage-directions and marks the exits and entrances of the characters, having a diagram of the stage with its various doors before him; and when he is finished all the "business," on the technical completeness of which the author, especially if he is callow, has probably flattered himself, is cut out. The phrases which are prolix or redundant are dropped, and a character may be swept out of existence by the stroke of a pencil or a new one added, a comedy-scene written in to relieve the gloom of some serious business, or an element of pathos introduced where the shadows are not deep enough. It is a fearful ordeal for the author, but the prospect of having the curtain lifted upon his work buoys him through it, and he discreetly keeps his temper, though unconvinced that all the changes are for the better. We are speaking of a tyro. When the playwright is a veteran his stage-directions are likely to be valuable, though few plays reach the public unaltered; and in some instances the suggestions of an inexperienced man are serviceable.