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Walter, Eugene, 1874-1941

"Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911"

I intend to give them to her.
WILL. On thirty dollars a week?
JOHN. I propose to go out and make a lot of money.
WILL. How?
JOHN. I haven't decided yet, but you can bet your sweet life that if I
ever try and make up my mind that it's got to be, it's got to be.
WILL. Never have made it, have you?
JOHN. I have never tried.
WILL. Then how do you know you can?
JOHN. Well, I'm honest and energetic. If you can get great wealth the
way you go along, I don't see why I can't earn a little.
WILL. There's where you make a mistake. Money-getting doesn't always
come with brilliancy. I know a lot of fellows in New York who can
paint a great picture, write a good play, and, when it comes to
oratory, they've got me lashed to a pole; but they're always in debt.
They never get anything for what they do. In other words, young man,
they are like a sky-rocket without a stick,--plenty of brilliancy, but
no direction, and they blow up and fizzle all over the ground.
JOHN. That's New York. I'm in Colorado, and I guess you know there is
a difference.
WILL. I hope you'll make your money, because I tell you frankly
that's the only way you can hold this girl. She's full of heroics now,
self-sacrifice, and all the things that go to make up the third act of
a play, but the minute she comes to darn her stockings, wash out her
own handkerchiefs and dry them on the window, and send out for a pail
of coffee and a sandwich for lunch, take it from me it will go Blah!
[_Rises, crosses to front of table with chair, places it with back to
him, braces his back on it, facing_ JOHN.


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