"Thank you, Mr. Savor," said Putney; "I'm glad you liked it. You couldn't
say I was trying to flatter her up much, anyway."
"No, no!" Mr. Savor assented, with delight in the joke.
"Well, Annie," said Putney. He shook hands with her, and Mrs. Putney, who
was there with Dr. Morrell, asked her where she had sat.
"We kept looking all round for you."
"Yes," said Putney, with his hand on his boy's shoulder, "we wanted to know
how you liked the Mercutio."
"Ralph, it was incomparable!"
"Well, that will do for a beginning. It's a little cold, but it's in the
right spirit. You mean that the Mercutio wasn't comparable to the Nurse."
"Oh, Lyra was wonderful!" said Annie. "Don't you think so, Ellen?"
"She was Lyra," said Mrs. Putney definitely.
"No; she wasn't Lyra at all!" retorted Annie. "That was the marvel of it.
She was Juliet's nurse."
"Perhaps she was a little of both," suggested Putney. "What did you think
of the performance, Mr. Peck? I don't want a personal tribute, but if you
offer it, I shall not be ungrateful."
"I have been very much interested," said the minister. "It was all very new
to me. I realised for the first time in my life the great power that the
theatre must be. I felt how much the drama could do--how much good."
"Well, that's what we're after," said Putney. "We had no personal motive;
good, right straight along, was our motto. Nobody wanted to outshine
anybody else. I kept my Mercutio down all through, so's not to get ahead
of Romeo or Tybalt in the public esteem. Did our friends outside the rope
catch on to my idea?" Mr. Peck smiled at the banter, but he seemed not to
know just what to say, and Putney went on: "That's why I made it so bad. I
didn't want anybody to go home feeling sorry that Mercutio was killed. I
don't suppose Winthrop could have slept."
"You won't sleep yourself to-night, I'm afraid," said his wife.
"Oh, Mrs. Munger has promised me a particularly weak cup of coffee. She has
got us all in, it seems, for a sort of supper, in spite of everything. I
understand it includes representatives of all the stations and conditions
present except the outcasts beyond the rope. I don't see what you're doing
here, Mr. Peck."