“You are not nervous, then, as to your reception?”
“No, I am sure it will be kindly; and, for their criticism, I think it will be just. There is the same honesty of purpose and intention in American as in English criticism, and, above all, there is the great play-going public, which is very much the same frank, generous, candid audience all over the world.”
“But there is the American interviewer! You have not yet encountered that interesting individual.”
“Oh, yes, I have.”
“Has he been here, then?”
“Yes; not in his war-paint, nor with his six-shooter and bowie-knife, as he goes about in Raymond’s Texan country, yet an interviewer still.”
“And you found him not disagreeable?” asked the travelled guest.
“I found him well informed and quite a pleasant fellow.”
“Ah, but he was here under your own control, probably smoking a cigar in your own room. Wait until he boards the steamer off New York. Then you will see the sort of person he is, with his string of questions more personal than the fire of an Old Bailey lawyer at a hostile witness under cross-examination. The Inquisition of old is not in the race with these gentlemen, except that the law, even in America, does not allow them to put you to physical torture, though they make up for that check upon their liberty by the mental pain they can inflict upon you. Apart from the interviewers proper, I have known reporters to disguise themselves as waiters, that they may pry into your secrets and report upon your most trivial actions.”