“That was a wonderful dive, Mr. Cartwright,” he murmured. “Just what I wanted.” The smile transformed itself into a look of great contentment. “I have always believed I could bring out the best in any member of my company. I think I am justified in holding that opinion still.” This is an advertising age, and the success of a commodity depends not so much on its quality as the quality of the advertisement bringing it before the public eye. Nevertheless, and despite the packed houses which patronised his new production, Eliphalet Cardomay was highly incensed when asked by a reporter to confide to the columns of the _Brestwater Mercury_ the precise sum he had paid in gold to the young lady who fell into the sea. CHAPTER VI QUICKSANDS OF TRADITION People who imagine an actor’s life is all honey forget that he has to read plays, and the reading of plays is at once the most onerous and exacting of all tasks. Not one in a hundred is fit to be read, and scarcely one in a thousand deserves production. Nearly everyone believes he can write a play, and most of these believers have a shot at it—and good, bad or indifferent, each one of these shots is stuffed into the barrel of a quarto envelope, charged with the address of this or that theatrical manager, and propelled by means of a given number of postage-stamps to its billet upon the managerial desk. Should the desk pertain to one of the more illustrious lights of the stage, the envelope is carried off by some erudite young gentleman, employed for the purpose, who cons the manuscript by the light of midnight oil, and directs its future career forward or backward, as the merit of the work suggests. In pursuance of this melancholy vocation the optic nerves and digestive organs invariably become impaired. The reader loses interest in life and sense of appreciation. He becomes a confirmed cynic and usually blights his own career by throwing out an obvious winner, and being thrown out himself for so doing. But those who work upon the Road, who have no swing-door offices in the Haymarket or Shaftesbury Avenue, who travel year in and year out dragging their productions from one town to another, who live in cheap hotels or cheaper lodgings, who have neither house nor home nor any household goods to call their own—naught save a succession of ugly theatrical baskets—for these no such luxury as a reader of plays exists. It is part of the price they must pay for billing their names so wide and large on the provincial hoardings that all odd hours and the pleasant magazine-time of the Sunday train journey should be spent in the consideration of unsought-for dramatic effusions.