The reason I would like to be a theatre reviewer

Dorothy Parker.

It appears that his boyhood sweetheart, Sally - called, by Mr. Louis Calhern, who has gone British or something, “Selly,” just as he says, and as yearningly, “heppy” - had used to occupy the adjoining room, and he had had a nasty habit of tapping on the wall between, to communicate with her. The code was not essentially difficult. There was one tap for “a”, two for “b”, and so on. I ask you, kind reader, but to bear this in mind for rougher times…

The cabinet minister talks softly and embarrassingly to Sally - ”Ah, Selly, Selly, Selly” - but this is not enough. He must tap out to her, on the garden wall, his message, though she is right beside him. First he taps, and at the length it would take, the letter “I”. Then he goes on to “l”, and, though surely everyone in the audience has caught the idea, he carries through to “o”. “Oh, he’s not going on into ‘v’,” I told myself. “Even Milne wouldn’t do that to you.” But he did. He tapped on through “v”, and then did an “e”. “If he does ‘y’,” I thought, “I’m through.” And he did. So I shot myself.

It was, unhappily, a nothing - oh, a mere scratch - and I was able to sit up and watch that dream go on through all the expected stages.

Etc, etc. Dorothy Parker is so cool.

Update: Dorothy Parker continues to be cool and I love reading her reviews. She says this in her review of a novel by Mussolini:

If only I had a private income, I would drop everything right now, and devote the scant remainder of my days to teasing the Dictator of All Italy…Indeed, my dream-life is largely made up of scenes in which I say to him, "Oh, Il Duce yourself, you big stiff," and thus leave him crushed to a pulp…

Weak though the ordeal has left me, I shall never be the one to grudge the time and effort I put into my attempts at reading The Cardinal’s Mistress. The book has considerably enlarged that dream-life I was telling you about a few minutes ago. It has broadened now to admit that scene in which I tell Mussolini, "And what’s more, you can’t even write a book that anyone could read. You old Duce, you." You can see for yourself how flat that would leave him.