SNEER. Very true.—Why, then, though I seriously admire the piece upon the whole, yet there is one small objection; which, if you’ll give me leave, I’ll mention. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Sir, you can’t oblige me more. SNEER. I think it wants incident. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Good God! you surprise me!—wants incident! SNEER. Yes; I own I think the incidents are too few. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Good God! Believe me, Mr. Sneer, there is no person for whose judgment I have a more implicit deference. But I protest to you, Mr. Sneer, I am only apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded.—My dear Dangle, how does it strike you? DANGLE. Really I can’t agree with my friend Sneer. I think the plot quite sufficient; and the four first acts by many degrees the best I ever read or saw in my life. If, I might venture to suggest anything, it is that the interest rather falls off in the fifth. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Rises, I believe you mean, sir. DANGLE. No, I don’t, upon my word. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Yes, yes, you do, upon my soul!—it certainly don’t fall off, I assure you.—No, no; it don’t fall off. DANGLE. Now, Mrs. Dangle, didn’t you say it struck you in the same light? MRS. DANGLE. No, indeed, I did not.—I did not see a fault in any part of the play, from the beginning to the end. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Upon my soul, the women are the best judges after all! MRS. DANGLE. Or, if I made any objection, I am sure it was to nothing in the piece; but that I was afraid it was on the whole, a little too long. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Pray, madam, do you speak as to duration of time; or do you mean that the story is tediously spun out? MRS. DANGLE. O Lud! no.—I speak only with reference to the usual length of acting plays. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Then I am very happy—very happy indeed—because the play is a short play, a remarkably short play. I should not venture to differ with a lady on a point of taste; but on these occasions, the watch, you know, is the critic. MRS. DANGLE. Then, I suppose, it must have been Mr. Dangle’s drawling manner of reading it to me. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. Oh, if Mr. Dangle read it, that’s quite another affair!—But I assure you, Mrs. Dangle, the first evening you can spare me three hours and a half, I’ll undertake to read you the whole, from beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the music between the acts. MRS. DANGLE. I hope to see it on the stage next. DANGLE. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish you may be able to get rid as easily of the newspaper criticisms as you do of ours. SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous—licentious—abominable—infernal.—Not that I ever read them—no—I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper. DANGLE. You are quite right; for it certainly must hurt an author of delicate feelings to see the liberties they take.