“For everybody but the understudies,” I answered in a knowing sort of way, and the assistant acting manager said it was deuced good, and left me.
Of course the whisky and soda and sandwiches were a bribe, and I decided not to touch them, because you couldn’t be unprejudiced about people who thrust whisky and soda upon you; besides, I didn’t drink whisky. Every critic worthy of the name snatches a glass of champagne between the acts of a new play, and then comes back to his seat licking the ends of his mustache; but the management doesn’t pay for the sparkling beverage—far from it: the critic pays himself and so preserves his right of judgment untarnished.
As a matter of fact, after the second act I did stroll round to see the other critics and hear if others agreed with my views of the performance. There were four obvious critics in the cloak-room, all eating and drinking with complete abandon and not saying a word about the play; and there were several other people of both sexes also eating and drinking, who might, or might not, have been critics.
Somehow I found a plate of sardine sandwiches under my hand, so just ate perhaps six or eight, without, however, surrendering my right of judgment. There was no sparkling wine going, but siphons of soda-water and two bottles of whisky. I drank about a pennyworth of pure soda-water, smoked half a cigarette, and then returned to the auditorium. No official spoke a word to me during this interlude. They may have felt it was better taste not to.
The play which was submitted to my attention was not in any literary sense a novelty, though there were several new readings in it, of which the least said the soonest mended, in my opinion. The drama in question was adapted from the French of that famous dramatist, M. Victorien Sardou, and it had taken two Englishmen to do it, both called Rowe, namely, Mr. Saville Rowe and Mr. Bolton Rowe. Diplomacy was the English name of the famous play, and there were seven men in it and five women. I knew the play, having seen it performed to perfection by Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and their company; and the come-down from them to the Clapham Macreadies was, of course, tragically abrupt. But, as a critic, I naturally made allowance for the gulf that was fixed between professional and amateur acting, combined with the differences between an Assembly Room and a proper theatre.
There was much to praise; and no doubt if you are beginning to be an actor yourself and just finding out the fearful difficulties of the stage, it makes you more merciful than if you are a critic who has never himself tried it, or knows in the least what it feels like. After the third act, the assistant acting manager came to me again, on his way to others, and said in a hopeful voice:
“Going strong—eh?”
“D’you mean me, or the play?” I asked, not in the least intending a joke; but he took it for such and evinced considerable amusement.
“You’ll be the death of me,” he said. “You’re a born humourist. I expect I should be surprised if I knew your name.”
“Very likely you would,” I replied guardedly. But of course I kept hidden under the critical veil and preferred to remain anonymous; because, to have told him that my name was merely Corkey, and that I was a clerk in a fire insurance office, would have made him under-value my criticism; whereas, in reality, some of the greatest critics of the drama the world has ever known, such as Charles Lamb, have pursued the avocation of clerk with great lustre and great honour to themselves and their employers.