CHAPTER XVII. THE COST OF A ROW
I
Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near "The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings. There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched, and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents,
