She insisted on hearing it whatever it was. “O well,” he said at last, “let’s do that properly, at least. I’ll go down there and deliver it from the stage. You must pretend that you are the enthusiastic audience. Come and sit in the stalls.”
They went down together.
“Now imagine that this curtain goes up and I suddenly appear.”
Kate faintly clapped her hands. He stood upon the platform facing her and taking off his hat, began:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“I am so deeply touched by the warmth of this reception, this utterly undeserved appreciation, that—forgive me—I have forgotten the speech I had carefully prepared in anticipation of it. Let me meet my obligation by telling you a story; I think it is true, I made it up myself. Once upon a time there was a poor playwright—something like me—who wrote a play—something like this—and at the end of the performance the audience, a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual audience—something like this—called him before the curtain and demanded a speech. He protested that he was unprepared and asked them to allow him to tell them a story—something like this. Well, that, too, was a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual audience, so they didn’t mind and he began again.—Once upon a time a poor playwright—and was just about to repeat the story I have already twice told you when suddenly, without a word of warning, without a sound, without a compunction, the curtain swooped down and chopped him clean in half.”
Masterman made an elaborate obeisance and stepped off the platform.
“Is that all?” asked Kate.
“That’s all.”
At that moment a loud bell clanged throughout the building signifying that the museum was about to close.