human
He will. He has promised to do everything you wish,
gpt
You stand by and see to it, little lady, said Crayford.
human
Happen when I'm gone, when the slave-driver's gone, eh, he'll get slack, begin to think he knows more about it than I do! He's not too pleased making the changes. I can see that.
gpt
It will be all right, I promise you. Claude isn't so mad as to lose the chance you are offering him.
human
It's the chance of a lifetime. I can tell you that.
gpt
He realizes it.
human
I'll tell you something. Only you needn't go telling everybody.
gpt
I won't tell a soul.
human
And watch out for the bodies, too. Well, I'm going to run Claude against Jacques Sennier. Mind you, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for the libretto. Seems to me the music is good enough to carry it, and it's going to be a lot better now I've made it over. Sennier's new opera is expected to be ready for March at latest. We'll produce ours --Charmian thrilled at that word--
gpt
But you'll be in America when he finishes it.
human
That don't matter. You're here to see he don't make any changes from what I've fixed on. We've got that all cut and dried now. It's only the writing's got to be done. I'll trust him for that. But there's not a scene that's to be cut out, or a situation to be altered, now I've fixed everything up. If you cable me, 'Opera finished according to decision,' I'll take your word, get out a contract, and go right ahead. You'll have to bring him over.
gpt
Of course! Of course!
human
And I'll get up a boom for you both that'll make the Senniers look like old bones.
gpt
I've got to down the Metropolitan crowd this winter. I've got to do it if I spend four hundred thousand dollars over it.
human
And this is the only opera I've found that might help me to do it, though I've searched all Europe. So now you know just where we are. It's a fight, little lady! And it's up to us to be the top dogs at the finish of it.
gpt
And we will be the top dogs!