supposed to tell you either.
He wanted it to be a surprise.
- He did?
- Yes, he...
he probably couldn't meet the right people right away,
missed a train. You know how it is.
Oh, it would be just wonderful
if he got the job and started working.
Or would it, Wick,
with him in Philadelphia and me in New York?
Don't ever tell him I said that though, will you?
Of course not.
I can never understand why somebody like Don,
a person with such talent, such flashes of real brilliance...
Maybe I'm a bit prejudiced.
What are you doing, Wick?
- Nothing.
- Where did that bottle come from?
- It just rolled out.
- From under the couch.
Yes, Helen.
- You I guess that Don caught an early train and...
- Is that Don's bottle?
- What makes you think that?
- There was a bottle the first time we met.
- There was?
- Fell out of Don's pocket.
That was for me, Helen. This one's mine too.
You might as well hear the family scandal. I drink.
Don thinks I drink too much. I had to promise to go on the wagon.
That's why I hid the bottle so he wouldn't see it.
Oh. I'm so sorry, Wick.
I shouldn't have started asking questions.
It's really none of my business.
Forget it, Helen.
I better be getting back to the hotel.
Don's probably there already. And don't worry,
Wick, I won'T mention a word of it to him.
- Thank you, Helen.
- Bye.
Bye.
Helen. I'm sorry, Helen. I can't let you go. Not like this.
Shut your mouth, Don. I'll take you downstairs.
Thanks very much for your Philadelphia Story, Wick. Nice try.
That looks so silly on you.
- Don't listen to him.
- You don't even have to. Just look at the two of us.
Yes. What is all this covering up?
All that happened is that Don was nervous at the idea
of meeting your parents and so he took a couple of drinks.
Come on, Wick, she'd have found out sooner or later.
Stop it, both of you.
Don's a little tight.
Most people drink a little.
A lot of them get tight once in a while.
Sure. The lucky ones who can take it or leave it.
But then there are the ones who can't take it
and leave it either.
What I'm trying to say is I'm not a drinker.
I'm a drunk.
They had to put me away once.
- He went to a cure.
- Which didn't take.
You see, that first time we met,
I should have had the decency to get drunk...
just for your sake.
For my sake? We're talking about you.
Is it really that bad, Wick?
Yes, it is.
Can't we go over this tomorrow, Don,
when you're feeling more like yourself?
Helen's heard the facts. That's all there is to it.
Yes, I've heard them and they're not very pleasant.
But they could be worse. After all,
you're not an embezzler or a murderer.
You drink too much and that's not fatal.
One cure didn't take. There are others.
Of course there are.
This has a familiar ring.
But, there must be a reason why you drink Don.
The right doctor could find it.
Look, I'm way ahead of the right doctor.
I know the reason. The reason is me. What I am.
Or, rather, what I'm not.
What I wanted to become and didn't.
What is it you want to be so much that you're not?
A writer.
Silly, isn't it?
You know, in college I passed for a genius.
They couldn't get out the college magazine
without one of my stories.
Boy, was I hot, Hemingway stuff.
I reached my peak when I was nineteen.
Sold a piece to the Atlantic Monthly.
Reprinted in the Readers' Digest.
Who wants to stay in college when he's Hemingway?
My mother bought me a brand new typewriter, and...
I moved right in on New York.
Well, the first thing I wrote, that didn't quite come off.
And the second, I dropped.
The public wasn't ready for that one.
I started a third and a fourth...
only by then, somebody began to look over
y shoulder and whisper...
in a thin, clear voice like the E-string on a violin.
Don Birnam, he'd whisper...
it's not good enough. Not that way.
How about a couple of drinks just to set it on its feet, huh?
So I had a couple. Oh, what a great idea that was.
That made all the