THE STORY OF A PLAY
A Novel
BY
W. D. HOWELLS
AUTHOR OF "THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD" "AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY" ETC.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1898
CONTENTS
I.
The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so farmade his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified intaking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at adinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with afacile flourish of praise from the journalist who brought them together,as the very men who were looking for each other, and who ought to beable to give the American public a real American drama. The actor, whobelieved he had an ideal of this drama, professed an immediate interestin the kind of thing Maxwell told him he was trying to do, and asked himto come the next day, if he did not mind its being Sunday, and talk theplay over with him.
He was at breakfast when Maxwell came, at about the hour people weregetting home from church, and he asked the author t