at his best.... The weak point of the play is that the character of
Sir John is not properly developed.... A perceptible dragging in the
Third Act.... It is a little difficult to understand why.... We should
hardly have expected Galsbarrie to have... The dialogue is perhaps a
trifle lacking in... Mr. Macready Jones did his best with the part of
Sir John, but as we have said... Mr. Kean-Smith was extremely unsuited
to the part of George.... The reception, on the whole, was
favourable."
You see the difference? Of course there is bound to be a difference,
and Mr. A. W. Galsbarrie would be very much disappointed if there were
not. He understands the critic's feeling, which is simply that _Kiss
Me, Katie_, is not worth criticizing, and that _Three Men_ most
emphatically is. Rut it is not surprising that the plain
man-in-the-street, who has saved up in order to take his girl to one
of the two new plays of the week, and is waiting for the reviews to
appear before booking his seats, should come to the conclusion that
_Three Men_ seems to be a pretty rotten play, and that, tired though
they are of musical comedy, _Kiss Me, Katie_, is evidently something
rather extra special which they ought not to miss.
Which means pots more money for Mr. Albert de Lauributt.
The Fires of Autumn
The most important article of furniture in any room is the fireplace.
For half the year we sit round it, warming ourselves at its heat; for
the other half of the year we continue to sit round it, moved thereto
by habit and the position of the chairs. Yet how many people choose
their house by reason of its fireplaces, or, having chosen it for some
other reason, spend their money on a new grate rather than on a new
sofa or a grand piano? Not many.
For one who has so chosen his house the lighting of the first fire is
something of a ceremony. But in any case the first fire of the autumn
is a notable event. Much as I regret the passing of summer, I cannot
help rejoicing in the first autumn days, days so cheerful and so very
much alive. By November the freshness has left them; one's thoughts go
backwards regretfully to August or forwards hopefully to April; but
while October lasts, one can still live in the present. It is in
October that one tastes again the delights of the fireside, and finds
them to be even more attractive than one had remembered.
But though I write "October," let me confess that, Coal Controller
or no Coal Controller, it was in September that I lit my first fire
this year. Perhaps as the owner of a new and (as I think) very
attractive grate I may be excused. There was some doubt as to whether
a fireplace so delightful could actually support a fire, a doubt which
had to be resolved as soon as possible. The match was struck with all
solemnity; the sticks caught up the flame from the dying paper and
handed it on to the coal; in a little while the coal had made room for
the logs, and the first autumn fire was in being.
Among the benefits which the war has brought to London, and a little
less uncertain than some, is the log fire. In the country we have
always burnt logs, with the air of one who was thus identifying
himself with the old English manner, but in London never--unless it
were those ship's logs, which gave off a blue flame and very little
else, but seemed to bring the fact that we were an island people more
closely home to us. Now wood fires are universal. Whether the air will
be purer in consequence and fogs less common, let the scientist
decide; but we are all entitled to the opinion that our drawing-rooms
are more cheerful for the change.
However, if you have a wood fire, you must have a pair of bellows. I
know a man who always calls them "bellus," which is, I believe, the
professional pronunciation. He also talks about a "hussif" and a
"cold chisel." A cold chisel is apparently the ordinary sort of
chisel which you chisel with; what a hot chisel is I never discovered.
But whether one calls them "bellows" or "bellus," in these days
one cannot do without them. They are as necessary to a wood fire as a
poker is to a coal fire, and they serve much the same purpose. There
is something very soothing about poking a fire, even if one's
companions point out that one is doing it all wrong, and offer an
exhibition of the correct method. To play upon a wood fire with a
bellows gives one the same satisfaction, and is just as pleasantly
annoying to the onlookers. They alone know how to rouse the dying
spark and fan it gently to a flame, until the whole log is a
triumphant blaze again; you, they tell you, are merely blowing the
whole thing out.
It is necessary, then, that the bellows-making industry should revive.
My impression is that a pair of bellows is usually catalogued under
the heading, "antique furniture," and I doubt if it is possible to
buy a pair anywhere but in an old furniture shop. There must be a
limit to the number of these available, a limit which has very nearly
been reached. Here is a chance for our ironmongers (or carpenters, or
upholsterers, or whoever have the secret of it). Let them get to work
before we are swamped with German bellows. It is no use to offer us
pokers with which to keep our log fires burning; we must have wind.
There is one respect in which I must confess that the coal fire has
the advantage of the wood fire. If your favourite position is on the
hearth-rug with your back to whatever is burning, your right hand
gesticulating as you tell your hearers what is wrong with the
confounded Government, then it does not greatly matter what brings you
that pleasant dorsal warmth which inspires you to such eloquence. But
if your favourite position is in an armchair facing the fire, and your
customary habit one of passive thought rather than of active speech,
then you will not get those visions from the burning wood which the
pictures in a coal fire bring you. There are no deep, glowing caverns
in the logs from which friendly faces wink back at you as your head
begins gently to nod to them. Perhaps it is as well. These are not the
days for quiet reflection, but for action. At least, people tell me
so, and I am very glad to hand on the information.
Not Guilty
As I descended the stairs to breakfast, the maid was coming up.
"A policeman to see you, sir," she said, in a hushed voice. "I've
shown him into the library."
"Thank you," I answered calmly, just as if I had expected him.
And in a sense, I suppose, I had expected him. Not particularly this
morning, of course; but I knew that the day was bound to come when I
should be arrested and hurried off to prison. Well, it was to be this
morning. I could have wished that it had been a little later in the
day, when I had more complete command of myself. I wondered if he
would let me have my breakfast first before taking me away. It is
impossible for an arrested man to do himself justice on an empty
stomach, but after breakfast he can play the part as it should be
played. He can "preserve a calm exterior" while at the same time
"hardly seeming to realize his position"; he can "go quietly" to
the police-station and "protest that he has a complete answer to the
charge." He can, in fact, do all the things which I decided to do as
I walked to the library--if only I was allowed to have my breakfast
first.
As I entered the library, I wondered what it was that I had done; or,
rather, what it was that I had looked as if I were doing. For that is
my trouble--that I look guilty so easily. I never cash a cheque at the
bank but I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder and to hear a stern
voice saying, "You cummer longer me." If I walk through any of the
big stores with a parcel in my hand I expect to hear a voice
whispering in my ear, "The manager would like to see you quietly in
his office." I have never forged or shoplifted in my life, but the
knowledge that a real forger or shoplifter would try to have the
outward appearance of a man as innocent as myself helps to give me the
outward appearance of a man as guilty as he. When I settle a bill by
cheque, my "face-of-a-man-whose-account-is-already-overdrawn" can be
read across the whole length of the shop as soon as I enter the door.
Indeed, it is so expressive that I had to give up banking at Cox's
during the war.
"Good morning," said the policeman. "I thought I'd better tell you
that I found your dining-room window open at six o'clock this morning
when I came on duty."
"Oh!" I said, rather disappointed.
For by this time I had prepared my speech from the dock, and it seemed
a pity to waste it. There is no part quite so popular as that of the
Wrongly Accused. Every hero of every melodrama has had to meet that
false accusation at some moment during the play; otherwise we should
not know that he was the hero. I saw myself in the dock, protesting my
innocence to the last; I saw myself entering the witness box and
remaining unshaken by the most relentless cross-examination; I saw my
friends coming forward to give evidence as to my unimpeachable
character....
And yet, after all, what could one's friends say? Imagine yourself in
the dock, on whatever charge it may be, and imagine this and that
friend coming forward to speak to you. What can they say?
What do they know? They know that you are a bore or not a bore, a
grouser or not a grouser, generous or mean, sentimental or cynical, an
optimist or a pessimist, and that you have or have not a sense of
humour. None of these is a criminal offence. Is there anything else
that your friends can say about you which can establish the likelihood
of your innocence? Not very much. Nor should we be flattered if there
were. When somebody says of us, "Oh, I can read old Jones like a
book; I know him inside and out--for the most straightforward, simple
creature," we protest indignantly. But if somebody says, "There's a
lot more in Jones than you think; I shall never quite understand
him," then we look modestly down our nose and tell ourselves that we
are Jones, the Human Enigma. Women have learnt all about this. They
realize that the best way to flatter us is to say earnestly, with a
shake of the head, "Your face is such a mask; I shall never know what
you're really thinking." How that makes us purr!
No, our friends cannot help us much, once we are in the dock. They
will protest, good friends that they are, that we are utterly
incapable of the crime of which we are accused (and in my case, of
course, they will be right), but the jury will know that our friends
do not really know; or at any rate the jury will guess that we have
not asked those of our friends who did know to speak for us. We must
rely on ourselves; on our speech from the dock; on our demeanour under
cross-examination; on----
"Your dining-room window open," said the policeman reproachfully.
"I'm sorry," I said; "I won't leave it open again."
Fortunately, however, they can't arrest you for it. So I led the way
out of the library and opened the front door. The policeman went
quietly.
A Digression
My omnibus left the broad and easy way which leads to Victoria Station
and plunged into the strait and narrow paths which land you into the
river at Vauxhall if you aren't careful, and I peered over the back to
have another look at its number. The road-mending season is in full
swing now, but no amount of road-mending could account for such a
comprehensive compass as we were fetching. For a moment I thought that
the revolution had begun. "'Busful of Bourgeoisie Kidnapped" would
make a good head-line for the papers. Or perhaps it was merely a
private enterprise. We were to be held for ransom in some deserted
warehouse on the margin of the Thames, into which, if the money were
not forthcoming, we should be dropped with a weight at the feet on
some dark and lonely night.... Fortunately the conductor came up at
this stage of the journey and said "Ennimorfairplees," whereupon I
laid my fears before him and begged him to let me know the worst. He
replied briefly, "Shorerpersher," and went down again. So that was
it.
Why is the Shah of Persia so popular? Even in these days when kings
are two a penny, and there is a never-ending procession of Napoleons
and Nelsons to the Guildhall to receive swords and freedoms and
honorary degrees, the arrival of a Shah of Persia stirs the
imagination of the man in the street. He feels something of the old
thrill. But in the nineties, of course, we talked about nothing else
for weeks. "Have you seen the Shah?" was the popular catch-phrase of
the day; there were music hall songs about him; he was almost as
important as a jubilee.
It is curious that this should have been so, for a Shah of Persia is
not really as important as that. There was never a catch-phrase,
"Have you seen the French President?" or even "Have you seen the
Tsar?" both of whom one would expect to take precedence of a Persian
ruler. But they are more commonplace people. The Shah makes his
appeal, not on account of his importance but on account of his
romantic associations. He fills the mind with thoughts of uncut
rubies, diamond-studded swords, Arab chargers, veiled houris, and the
very best Persian sherbet. One does not stand outside Victoria in the
hope of seeing any of these things in the carriage with him, but one
feels that is the sort of man he is, and that if only he could talk
English like you or me, he could tell us a story worth the telling.
"Hooray for the Shah!"
Seated on my omnibus, and thinking of these things--(we had tacked by
this time, and were beating up for Pimlico)--I remembered suddenly a
little personal incident in connexion with the visit of that earlier
Shah which is not without its moral for all of us. It teaches us the
lesson that--well, we can settle this afterwards. Anyway, here is the
story.
The Shah of Persia was in England, and all England was talking about
him. Naturally, we were talking about him at my private school. I was
about nine at the time; it is not the age at which one knows much
about high politics, but it is almost the only age when one really
knows where Persia is. I have no doubt that we "did" Persia in that
term, out of honour to the Shah. One result of all this talk in the
school about the Persian Potentate was (as you might expect) that a
certain boy was nicknamed "The Shah," presumably on account of some
magnificence of person or costume. Now it happened that the school was
busying itself just then over some election--to the presidency of the
Debating Society, or membership of the Games Committee, or something
of that sort--and "The Shah" was a very popular candidate. I was one
of his humble but admiring supporters.
Observe me, then, on the polling day, busily at work in a corner of
the schoolroom. I am writing in bold capitals on a piece of exercise
paper, "Vote for the shah." Having written it, I pinned it proudly
up in a corner of the room, and stood back awhile to look at it. My
first effort at electioneering. There was no immediate sensation, for
everybody else was too busy over his own affairs to notice my little
poster, and so I went about from one little knot of talkers to
another, hanging shyly on the outskirts in the hope that, when it
broke up, I might lead the way casually towards my masterpiece--"VOTE
FOR THE SHAH."
Suddenly my attention was attracted to another boy, who, even as I had
been a few minutes ago, was now busily writing. I kept my eye on him,
and when he had finished his work, and was walking across the room
with a piece of paper in his hand, I followed him eagerly. He was at
least twelve; I was only nine. Can you wonder that he seemed to me
almost the last word in wisdom? So I followed him. Could it really be
that my poster had forstalled his? What glory if it were so! He pinned
up his notice. He moved away, and I read it. It said: "VOTE FOR THE
SHAR."
You can imagine my feelings. I went hot all over. "Shar," of course,
not "Shah." How ever could I have been such an idiot as to have
thought it was "Shah"? S-h-a-h obviously spelt shash, not shar. How
nearly I had exposed my appalling ignorance to my fellows! "Vote for
the--"; I blushed again, hardly able to think of it. And oh! how
thankful I was now that everybody else had been too busy to read my
poster. Hastily I went over to it, and tore it down; hastily I went
back to my desk and wrote another poster. Observe me now again. I am
writing in bold capitals on a piece of exercise paper: "VOTE FOR THE
SHAR."
And the moral? Well, my omnibus has now; fetched its compass round
Victoria, we are back on the main route again, and I think I must
leave the moral to you.
High Finance
I know very little about the Stock Exchange. I know, of course, that
stockbrokers wear very shiny top-hats, which they remove when they
sing "God Save the King," as they invariably do in a crisis. When
they go out to lunch, the younger ones leave their top-hats behind
them, and take the air with plastered polls; and after lunch is over,
young and old alike have a round of dominoes before placing threepence
under the coffee-cup and returning to business. If business is slack,
they tell each other jokes, which get into the papers with some such
introduction as, "A good story going the round of the Stock
Exchange." Probably it was going the round of the nurseries in 72,
but the stockbrokers have been so busy making Consols go up and down
that they have not been able to listen to it before. Anyway, the
careful man always avoids a good story which is going the round of the
Stock Exchange.
But apart from these minor activities of the City, the financial world
has always been a mystery to me. To this day I do not understand why
Consols go up and down. Perhaps they only go down now, but there was a
time when they would be 78 1/4 in the morning, 78 1/2 after the Stock
Exchange had returned from its coffee, and 78 when it went out to play
dominoes again. When they thudded down to 78, this proved that the
Government had lost the confidence of the country. But I never heard
an explanation of it all which carried any conviction.
Once I asked a noted financial authority to tell me all about it in
words of one syllable. He did his best. He said it was "simply a
question of supply and demand." In that case one would expect
umbrellas to go up and down according to the weather--I mean, of
course, the price of umbrellas. But apparently umbrellas aren't so
sensitive as stocks, which are the most sensitive things in the world.
In the happy days before the war, when the President of Nicaragua sent
a stiff note to the President of Uruguay, Consols immediately dropped
a quarter of a point. The President of Uruguay answered, "Sorry, my
mistake," and Consols went back again. Evidently, several gentlemen,
who would have bought Consols in the ordinary way on that Thursday,
decided to buy Haricot Beans instead, as being, I suppose, more useful
in the event of a war between Nicaragua and Uruguay. So Consols
feeling the neglect, went down. But on the Friday, as soon as Uruguay
had apologized, the gentlemen who had just sold the Haricot Beans
hurried out to buy Consols, as being quite safe again now that there
was no more chance of war. So Consols went cheerfully up again. You
see?
But the financial problem is getting very much more difficult than
this, The vagaries of Consols, or even of the reputed gold-mine in
which I once had shares--(this is a sad story, but, fortunately, when
they had dropped to six-and-sixpence, there was a demand for them by a
man called Wilkinson, poor fellow, which arrested the fall just long
enough for me to get out. They are now three a penny, so I hope
Wilkinson found a demand, too)--well, then, even the vagaries of the
West African market are a simple matter compared with the vagaries of
the Exchange. The mystery of the mark, for instance, is so utterly
beyond that, in trying to understand it, I do not even know where to
begin. I see no mental foothold anywhere.
The mark, we are told, is now worth tuppence-ha'penny. Why? I mean,
who said so? Who is it who arranges these things? Is it Rockefeller or
one of the Geddeses or Samuel Gompers--a superman of some kind? Or is
it a Committee of the Stock Exchange and Greenwich Observatory? And
how does it decide? Does it put a mark up for auction and see what the
demand is like? Or does it decide on moral grounds? Does it say
contemptuously, "Oh, I should think about tuppence-ha'penny, and
serve 'em dashed well right for losing the war"?
Let us go slowly, and see if we can make any sense of it. Suppose that
I produce something worth a shilling, something, that is, which I can
sell in this country for a shilling--a blank verse tragedy, say. Let
us suppose also that, having received the shilling, I propose to buy a
bag of nuts. A German offers me a mark for my tragedy. Now that mark
has got to be spent in Germany by somebody; not, of course,
necessarily by me. I probably hand it to Thomas Cook or his Son, who
gives it to somebody else, who eventually takes it back to Germany
again. Obviously, then, what I have to consider, when I am offered a
mark instead of the customary shilling for my blank verse, is this:
"Can this mark purchase a similar-sized bag of nuts in Germany?" If
the answer is "Yes," then the mark is worth a shilling; if the answer
is that it will only buy a bag of about a fifth of the English size,
then the mark is worth tuppence-ha'penny.
Well, is everything in Germany five times as dear as it is in England?
No. Not by any means. If a mark is regarded as tuppence-ha'penny,
everything is extraordinarily cheap; much cheaper than in England.
Also it occurs to me suddenly that if this were the way in which the
pundits decided upon the price of the mark and the franc and the
peseta and the cowrie-shell, then the price of living in every country
would be exactly the same, and we should have nowhere to retire to
when the taxes were too high. Which would be absurd. So we must have
done the sum wrong. Let us try again.
The price of the mark (this is our new theory) depends on the amount
of goods which Germany is exporting. A German offers me a mark for my
tragedy, but if no other German has got anything to give me, or Thomas
Cook or his Son, in exchange for that mark, then the mark is obviously
no good to us. If, then, we say that the mark is worth tuppence-ha'penny,
we mean that Germany is importing (or buying) five times as
much as she is exporting (or selling). Similarly, when the rouble was
about ten a penny, Russia was importing a hundred times as much as she
was exporting. But she was not importing anything then because of the
blockade. Therefore--no, it's no good. You see, we can't do it. We
shall have to stand about on the Brighton road until one of those
stockbrokers comes by. He will explain it to us.
But perhaps a better man to consult in these matters of High Finance
is the Strong Man whom we see so often upon the stage. Sometimes he
builds bridges, and sometimes he makes steel, but the one I like best
is the one who controls the markets of the world. He strides to the
telephone and says grimly down it: "Sell Chilled Tomatoes.... No....
Yes... Keep on selling," and in far-away Nan-Kang-Foo a man shoots
himself. He had too many Chilled Tomatoes--or too few.
But the Strong Man goes on his way. He is married to a young and
beautiful girl, whom he has adored silently for years. He has never
told her; partly because he thought it would not be fair to her,
partly because he knows it would spoil the play. He is too busy to see
much of her, but sometimes they meet at dinner, and then he strokes
her head and asks her kindly what she is doing that evening. Probably
she is going out with George B. Pusher. What else could you expect?
All the time when Staunton is buying Tomatoes and Salmon and Tintacks
and Locomotives and Peanuts and lots of things that he doesn't really
want, George B. Pusher is in attendance on the Heroine.
There is a terrible scene when Staunton discovers what is going on.
Who is this puppy? George B. Pusher? That settles it. He will ruin
Pusher.
He sells Tomatoes. Pusher hasn't got any. He buys Raspberry Jam.
Pusher doesn't want any. Damn the fellow, he refuses to be ruined.
Everybody is shooting himself except Pusher.
At last. Wire Netting! Why didn't he think of Wire Netting before? He
buys all the Wire Netting that there is. Then he sells it all. George
R. Pusher is ruined. He comes round to beg for mercy.
Now, perhaps, if we listen very carefully, we shall understand how it
is all done.
Secret Papers
The cabinet, or whatever I am to call it, has looked stolidly at me
from the corner of the library for years. It is nothing more than a
row of pigeon-holes in which I keep my secret papers. At least, the
man who sold it to me recommended it for this purpose, dwelling
lovingly as he did so upon the strength of the lock. So I bought
it--in those first days (how far away!) when I came to London to set
the Thames on fire.