You can guess what Proper said.
"Life," he said, "is one constant battle. Nature," he said, "is ruthless, and the weakest must go to the wall. If I kill the hawk," he said, "I am kind to the dove, but am I," he said, and I think there was a good deal in this--"am I kind to the caterpillar or whatever it is that the dove eats?" Of course, you know, there _is_ that to be thought of. Anyhow, after soliloquizing for forty-seven minutes Prince Proper went on his way; and by and by Prince Clever came along.
You can guess what Clever said.
"My whiskers!" he said, "this is older than the last. I knew this in my cradle." With one of those nasty sarcastic laughs that I hate so much he went on his way; and by and by Prince Goldenlocks came along.
(Now then, Goldenlocks, the throne is almost yours!)
You can guess what Goldenlocks said.
"Poor little dove," he said. "But I can save its life."
Rapidly he fitted an arrow to his bow and with careful aim let fly at the pursuing hawk....
I say again that Prince Goldenlocks was the most beautiful youth you have ever seen in your life, and he had a very loving nature. But he was a poor shot.
He hit the dove....
_"Is that all?" said Margery._
_"That's all," I said. "Good night."_
DISAPPOINTMENT
My young friend Bobby (now in the early thirteens) has been making his plans for the Christmas holidays. He communicated them to me in a letter from school:--
"I am going to write an opera in the holidays with a boy called Short, a very great and confident friend of mine here. I am doing the words and Short is doing the music. We have already got the title; it is called 'Disappointment.'"
Last week, on his return to town, he came to see me at my club, and when the waiter had brought in drinks, and Bobby had refused a cigar, I lighted up and prepared to talk shop. His recent discovery that I write too leads him to treat me with more respect than formerly.
"Now then," I said, "tell me about it. How's it going on?"
"Oo, I haven't done much yet," said Bobby. "But I've got the plot."
"Let's have it."
Bobby unfolded it rapidly.
"Well, you see, there's a chap called Tommy--he's the hero--and he's just come back from Oxford, and he's awfully good-looking and decent and all that, and he's in love with Felicia, you see, and there's another chap called Reynolds, and, you see, Felicia's really the same as Phyllis, who's going to marry Samuel, and that's the disappointment, because Tommy wants to marry her, you see."
"I see. That ought to be all right. You could almost get two operas out of that."
"Oo, do you think so?"
"Well, it depends how much Reynolds comes in. You didn't tell me what happened to him. Does he marry anybody?"
"Oo, no. He comes in because I want somebody to tell the audience about Tommy when Tommy isn't there."
(How well Bobby has caught the dramatic idea.)
"I see. He ought to be very useful."
"You see, the First Act's in a very grand restaurant, and Tommy comes in to have dinner, and he explains to Reynolds how he met Felicia on a boat, and she'd lost her umbrella, and he said, 'Is this your umbrella?'
and it was, and they began to talk to each other, and then he was in love with her. And then he goes out, and then Reynolds tells the audience what an awfully decent chap Tommy is."
"Why does he go out?"
"Well, you see, Reynolds couldn't tell everybody what an awfully decent chap Tommy is if Tommy was there."
(Of course he couldn't.)
"And where's Felicia all this time?"
"Oo, she doesn't come on: She's in the country with Samuel. You see, the Second Act is a grand country wedding, and Samuel and Phyllis are married, and Tommy is one of the guests, and he's very unhappy, but he tries not to show it, and he shoots himself."
"Reynolds is there too, I suppose?"
"Oo, I don't know yet."
(He'll have to be, of course. He'll be wanted to tell the audience how unhappy Tommy is.)
"And how does it end?" I asked.
"Well, you see, when the wedding's over, Tommy sings a song about Felicia, and it ends up, 'Felicia, Felicia, Felicia,' getting higher each time--Short has to do that part, of course, but I've told him about it--and then the curtain comes down."
"I see. And has Short written any of the music yet?"
"He's got some of the notes. You see, I've only just got the plot, and I've written about two pages. I'm writing it in an exercise-book."
A shadow passed suddenly across the author's brow.
"And the sickening thing," he said, as he leant back in his chair and sipped his ginger-beer, "is that on the cover of it I've spelt Disappointment with two 's's.'"
(The troubles of this literary life!)
"Sickening," I agreed.
If there is one form of theft utterly unforgivable it is the theft by a writer of another writer's undeveloped ideas. Borrow the plot of Sir J.
M. Barrie's last play, and you do him no harm; you only write yourself down a plagiarist. But listen to the scenario of his next play (if he is kind enough to read it to you) and write it up before he has time to develop it himself, and you do him a grievous wrong; for you fix the charge of plagiarism on _him_. Surely, you say, no author could sink so low as this.
And yet, when I got home, the plot of "Disappointment" (with one "s") so took hold of me that I did the unforgivable thing; I went to my desk and wrote the opera. I make no excuses for myself. I only point out that Bobby's opera, as performed at Covent Garden in Italian, with Short's music conducted by Richter, is not likely to be belittled by anything that I may write here. I have only written in order that I may get the scenario--which had begun to haunt me--off my chest. Bobby, I know, will understand and forgive; Short I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, but I believe he is smaller than Bobby.