Murd. All right.
Bar. That's all of that scene.
Crisp, of course, and to the point; but I feel sure that there must have been more in the interview as originally written.
Perhaps, again, the cast was to blame for whatever may have been disappointing in the performance. Individually they were a fine company, passionate and wiry of gesture, and full of energy. Indeed their chief fault sprang from an incapacity to remain motionless in repose. This led to a notable lack of balance. However sensational it may be for the exit of every character to bring down the house, its effect is unfortunately to retard the action of the piece.
Personally I consider that the women were the worst offenders. Take the heroine, for example. Lovely she may have been, though in a style more appreciated by the late George Cruikshank than by myself; but looks are not everything. Art simply didn't exist for her. Revue might have been her real line; or, better still, a strong-woman turn on the Halls. There was the episode, for instance, where, having to prostrate herself before the Baron, she insisted upon a backward exit (with the usual result) and then made an acrobatic re-entrance on her knees.
Tolerant as he was, even Peter began at last to grow impatient at the vagaries of his company. Finally, when the Executioner (a mere walker-on of no importance whatever) had twice brought ridicule upon the ultimate solemnities of the law by his introduction of comic dives off the scaffold, the manager rang down the curtain. Not before it was time.
"They're lovely to look at," he observed, surveying the supine cast, "but awfully difficult to do anything with."
"Peter," I answered gratefully, "as an estimate of the theatrical profession your last remark could hardly be improved upon."
Of course he didn't understand; but, being dramatist as well as uncle, I enjoyed saying it.