BLACK OXEN

BLACK OXEN


I

"Talk. Talk. Talk. . . . Good lines and no action . . . said
all . . . not even promising first act . . . eighth failure and season
more than half over . . . rather be a playwright and fail than a critic
compelled to listen to has-beens and would-bes trying to put over bad
plays. . . . Oh, for just one more great first-night . . . if there's
a spirit world why don't the ghosts of dead artists get together and
inhibit bad playwrights from tormenting first-nighters? . . . Astral
board of Immortals sitting in Unconscious tweaking strings until
gobbets and sclerotics become gibbering idiots every time they put pen
to paper? . . . Fewer first-nights but more joy . . . also joy of
sending producers back to cigar stands. . . . Thank God, no longer a
critic . . . don't need to come to first-nights unless I want . . .
can't keep away . . . habit too strong . . . poor devil of a colyumist
must forage . . . why did I become a columnist? More money. Money!
And I once a rubescent socialist . . . best parlor type . . . Lord! I
wish some one would die and leave me a million!"

Clavering opened his weary eyes and glanced over the darkened
auditorium, visualizing a mass of bored resentful disks: a few hopeful,
perhaps, the greater number too educated in the theatre not to have
recognized the heavy note of incompetence that had boomed like a
muffled fog-horn since the rise of the curtain.