"They say it's better at night, because the whole place is lit up by hurricane lanterns and looks like fairyland."
"Oh, very well. That leaves us three evenings. We——"
"There's this French season at the Central. The papers say that no one who appreciates good acting can afford to miss that. It's packed, I believe.... Besides, one finds one's French comes back very easily. By the end of the evening I can generally follow most of what they say."
"H'm. We shan't be able to see Robey and Berry and Graves and Leslie Henson and Delysia in two nights."
"No-o.... Besides, everybody says one ought to see this Japanese man in Romeo and Juliet. I hear the way he swarms up the creeper in the balcony scene is quite too wonderful. They made him do it four times the first night."
Thus we are left with six evenings of duty and one of enjoyment, unless Angela happens to hear that there is a 'cellist from Spitzbergen or a Bolshevik soprano whom it is social death not to be able to discuss. In that case we get no fun at all.
The Hewetsons, who live in London and can enjoy all these opportunities for improvement and still have time for Mr. Robey and the rest, think me a terrible Philistine. But, as I pointed out to Hewetson, he suffers just as acutely when he has a holiday and goes to Paris. Hewetson holds that there is only one theatre in Paris, the Variétés. But by the time he has accompanied Mrs. H. to the Français, the Opéra, the Opéra Comique and the Odéon, to say nothing of the Théâtre des Arts, he is due back at the office. When I explained this to him, his whole attitude changed at once, and he implored me to accept his subscription for shares in my company. But his heart-rending account of his last visit to Paris, before the War, when he and Mrs. H. spent two days hunting round the Louvre (Musée) under the impression that the Rodins were kept there, suggested a wider scope for my schemes, and it seemed to me that the only fair way of acknowledging this was to make Hewetson a director.
And now I must tell you about my company, for, although we are in danger of becoming over-capitalised, there are still one or two shares we are willing to sacrifice, practically at par. The company is known as High-brows, Ltd., and is "designed to meet the requirements" of the countless thousands who detect a familiar note in the conversation with Angela just recorded. The idea is simple and, like all simple ideas, great. We buy a house in each of the chief capitals of the civilised world, and to this house the visitor hurries as soon as he has left his luggage at the hotel. Each house will be arranged in the same manner, so that no knowledge of the language of the country is required to enable the stranger to find his way about.
The ground floor will consist of one large hall or room, combining the functions of waiting-room and Fine Art Gallery. Reproductions of the principal pictures and statues of the national museums will occupy two walls and the centre carpet, the remaining walls being hung with the more astonishing examples of contemporary painters. (We are not anticipating any inquiries for contemporary sculpture). A minimum of ten minutes is allowed for this room. When your turn arrives you mount to the first floor, which you find divided into two parts. In each of these a cinematograph is installed, one "featuring" prominent artists in the standard dramas of the particular country—works like Le Cid, Macbeth, Faust, or Peer Gynt; while the other runs through the more discussed scenes of any current entertainment which conceivably one "ought to see."
The first of these programmes is designed primarily for foreigners, and is meant to save them the fatigue of a visit to national or subsidised theatres, where these exist. The second is intended to meet the requirements of natives. Each bill will last an hour, and, though clients are entitled to see both performances, full-time attendance at either carries with it the right to proceed to the next floor. Here again are two more rooms. In the first of these a gramophone renders in turn the leading vocalists and instrumentalists (serious) of the country. (Say half-an-hour.) So far you will have been put to a minimum expenditure of one hour and forty minutes, and, as only five minutes is allowed for the last room, the time total cannot be considered excessive.