_When he reaches the table he shakes hands with ANTHONY and MAURY. He is one of those men who invariably shake hands, even with people whom they have seen an hour before._
ANTHONY: Hello, Caramel. Glad you're here. We needed a comic relief.
MAURY: You're late. Been racing the postman down the block? We've been clawing over your character.
DICK: (_Fixing_ ANTHONY _eagerly with the bright eye_) What'd you say? Tell me and I'll write it down. Cut three thousand words out of Part One this afternoon.
MAURY: Noble aesthete. And I poured alcohol into my stomach.
DICK: I don't doubt it. I bet you two have been sitting here for an hour talking about liquor.
ANTHONY: We never pass out, my beardless boy.
MAURY: We never go home with ladies we meet when we're lit.
ANTHONY: All in our parties are characterized by a certain haughty distinction.
DICK: The particularly silly sort who boast about being "tanks"! Trouble is you're both in the eighteenth century. School of the Old English Squire. Drink quietly until you roll under the table. Never have a good time. Oh, no, that isn't done at all.
ANTHONY: This from Chapter Six, I'll bet.
MAURY: Yes. We intend to spend the evening doing some deep thinking over of life's problems. The thing is tersely called "The Woman." I presume that she will "pay."
ANTHONY: My God! Is that what it is? Let's go to the Follies again.
MAURY: I'm tired of it. I've seen it three times. (_To DICK:_) The first time, we went out after Act One and found a most amazing bar. When we came back we entered the wrong theatre.
ANTHONY: Had a protracted dispute with a scared young couple we thought were in our seats.
DICK: (_As though talking to himself_) I think--that when I've done another novel and a play, and maybe a book of short stories, I'll do a musical comedy.
MAURY: I know--with intellectual lyrics that no one will listen to. And all the critics will groan and grunt about "Dear old Pinafore." And I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.
DICK: (_Pompously_) Art isn't meaningless.
MAURY: It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so.
ANTHONY: In other words, Dick, you're playing before a grand stand peopled with ghosts.