some magazine would get a new kind of rejection slip! _(Sits
dejectedly.)_

_Peggy._ Did you get any money for the rent?

_Will._ Not yet, Peggy _(suddenly)._ The truth is, I didn't try.
Peggy, I've got to write that play!

_Peggy (Horrified)._ Will!

_Will._ I tell you I've got to! That's what I've been doing--sitting
in Union Square, working it over--ever since lunch time! It's a
perfectly stunning idea.

_Peggy._ Oh, Will, I know all that--but how can you write plays when
we must have money? Money right away! Money to pay the landlady!
Money to pay the grocer!

_Will._ But Peggy--

_Peggy._ Will, you've got to do something that will sell right off
the bat--payment on acceptance! Short stories! Sketches!

_Will (wildly)._ But don't you see that so long as I do short
stories and sketches I'm a slave? I earn just enough to keep us
going week by week. Pot-boiling--pot-boiling--year after year! And
youth is going--life is going! Peggy, I've got to make a bold
stroke, do something big and get out of this!

_Peggy._ But Will, it's madness! A play's the hardest thing of all