Alice.. He said:--"I was thinking of having one myself, Miss Whistler."
[And there follows her through the curtains a hand and arm holding a foaming pint of beer, which she takes across to her Uncle. The beer goes the way of all beer.
Uncle Edward.. [After wiping his mouth, most politely, with the cheerfullest looking handkerchief you ever saw.] On the warm side. Go on with your bit.
[Alice takes her talking place again, feet together, hands behind her. Then a long breath.
Alice.. So the years went by. And they acted in Italy, and they acted in France, and they acted in England. Which is where we've got to now, in about seventeen hundred and something. All sorts of odd people got added to the company, and dropped out again on the journeys. In France they found Pierrot. But, being a Frenchman, he hated travelling; so they left him there. Nobody knows who Pierrot was ... at least I don't.
Uncle Edward.. My dear, if we start on what we don't know, we'll be here all night ... and the next.
Alice.. I'll skip lots then ... all about Mr. Rich and the great Harlequins. People liked them better than Garrick! And now we come to the next story. It's England, and it's London. It's about Columbine running away. It must always be about that. The hero runs away with her. Or, strictly speaking, p'raps this time it's her that runs away with him.
Uncle Edward.. Grammar.
Alice.. Her ... or she that runs away with he ... or him! She's a country girl come to be a chambermaid in London. A singing chambermaid, she is; they had them in the old plays, and it must have brightened the hotels lots. And she's called Richardson for short. Harlequin's a valet in the same house. And why they're servants now instead of actors is because it was about this time people began to think that Art and Religion and Love were things you could just ring the bell for, and up they would come and wait on you. So this is another sort of a...symbol. And the gods have lost their magic.
Uncle Edward.. [Much alarmed.] What?