"Ye go gadding off to America.
Ye get yeself mixed up in theatres.... How's the theatre? I see yer
famous play's coming to an end next week."
"And what if it is?" said Edward Henry, jealous for reputations,
including his own. "It will have run for a hundred and one nights. And
right through August too! No modern poetry play ever did run as long
in London, and no other ever will. I've given the intellectual theatre
the biggest ad. it ever had. And I've made money on it. I should have
made more if I'd ended the run a fortnight ago, but I was determined
to pass the hundredth night. And I shall do!"
"And what are ye for giving next?"
"I'm not for giving anything next, doc. I've let the Regent for five
years at seven thousand five hundred pounds a year to a musical comedy
syndicate, since you're so curious. And when I've paid the ground rent
and taxes and repairs, and something towards a sinking-fund, and six
per cent on my capital, I shall have not far off two thousand pounds a
year clear annual profit. You may say what you like, but that's what I
call business!"
It was a remarkable fact that, while giving undemanded information to
Dr. Stirling, Edward Henry was in reality defending himself against
the accusations of his wife--accusations which, by the way, she had
never uttered, but which he thought he read sometimes in her face.
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