He evaded discussions of Margot until Sunday night when he went with Mark to Boston for the opening of “Captain Salvador” there. On Monday night he sat, a spy, in the middle of the large audience. A critic had come from New York to see this play before it should reach the metropolitan shoals. Gurdy saw the slender, sharp face intent. The ten scenes of the Cuban romance passed without a hitch before the placid Bostonians. Mark was directing the lights that raised peaks of gloom on the walls, sent shimmerings along the moonlit beach where the hero squatted in a purple shadow. About him Gurdy heard appropriate murmurs. A fat woman whimpered her objection to the half naked celebrants of the Voodoo scene. An old man complained that this was unlike life. Two smart matrons chatted happily about a Harvard cabal against some friend while “Captain Salvador” effected his wooing. A thin boy in spectacles wailed an argument that true art wasn’t possible in a capitalistic nation. A girl giggled every time the sailors of the story swore and almost whinnied when the word, “strumpet” rattled over the lights. But this herd redeemed itself in heavy applause. The thin boy wailed a blanket assent to the merits of the plot and the setting, “After all, Walling’s Irish and he studied under Reinhardt in Berlin. The Kelts have some feeling for values.” Still the fat woman thought, loudly, that the play didn’t prove anything and Gurdy decided that one of his future satires must be named, The Kingdom of Swine. He found Mark in high delight behind the scenes, snapping directions to his manager, his leading man and the electrician in the New Jersey singsong. “Have the tomtom some louder for the Voodoo, Ike. Bill, you send all the notices special delivery to the Willard in Washington. Mr. O’Mara’s in Hayti if the _Transcript_ wants an interview. Beach scene blue enough, Gurdy? All right, Ed, I told you it was. Now, Leslie, take your fall at the end quieter, a little. You’re all right, the rest of it. Come along, Gurdy. Taxi’s waiting.” In the taxi, he cried, “Damn this lousy ‘Todgers’ thing, son! I want to stay here. People liked it, huh?” “They did.--Oh, you’re Irish and you learned all your business from Reinhardt.” “Sure! Blame, it on Europe!--My God, didn’t the tomtom business go like a breeze?--Oh, this ‘Todgers’ thing’ll be too bad. Tell you, I’ll play it in Washington and Philadelphia. Baltimore, if it don’t just roll on its belly and die. Sorry if Margot gets sore.--She and Olive went to Washington s’afternoon, didn’t they, huh?--Was the ship scene light enough, sonny?” He sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with excitement and drank watered brandy. He dreamed of “Captain Salvador’s” first night at the Walling and tremors of applause mounting to the blue vault of that perfected ceiling. He was so tired that he struggled, undressing. “Mark, you’re thin as a bean! Nothing but some muscles and skin.”