"Quite likely. I think they try. One wet and miserable night I went to see. But remembering, as I did, the immortal Katherine of Rehan and the hardly less magnificent Petruchio of Skinner, I never should have gone. There was only one redeeming feature."
"What was that?"
"When the scene comes, watch how this man carries Katherine off. That's one great test. See if he backs her up onto a bench; see if he guides her premeditated fall to the precise center of equilibrium of his shoulders; see if he staggers painfully off with his knees tottering, almost flapping beneath him. By heavens, I have seen Skinner abduct a one hundred and sixty pound Katherine with as little effort as if she had been a wicker basket full of eggshells!"
"Is this dramatic criticism?" asked Helen, maliciously.
"Perhaps not of the academic brand," admitted Smith, laughingly; "but I believe it's good sound criticism just the same. If a man is going to play the swashbuckler, I like to see him able to swash his buckle. But seriously, I shouldn't have objected to that one bad piece of business if it hadn't seemed to me that the whole performance was out of key and wrong. But here's the curtain going up."
The curtain rose on Signor Baptista's house, and for the next half hour farce comedy supreme held the audience in its grasp.
"Katherine is very good, don't you think?" queried Helen, when once more the inane wanderings of the orchestra began to compete with the conversation.
"Very good indeed; I like her rages."
"I have always been sorry that I never saw Ada Rehan; every one who ever saw her says just as you do that no one could equal her."
"I'm sure no one could. I have seen her sit with her hands in her lap and tears—genuine tears—streaming down her cheeks for very rage when Petruchio harries her in this act. Heavens! but she was in a fine fury! Do you know that the only objection I ever had to this play was that I grew sorry for Katherine—sorry to see her proud neck bent to any yoke, so to speak."