Somehow I found a plate of sardine sandwiches under my hand, so just ate perhaps six or eight, without, however, surrendering my right of judgment. There was no sparkling wine going, but siphons of soda-water and two bottles of whisky. I drank about a pennyworth of pure soda-water, smoked half a cigarette, and then returned to the auditorium. No official spoke a word to me during this interlude. They may have felt it was better taste not to. The play which was submitted to my attention was not in any literary sense a novelty, though there were several new readings in it, of which the least said the soonest mended, in my opinion. The drama in question was adapted from the French of that famous dramatist, M. Victorien Sardou, and it had taken two Englishmen to do it, both called Rowe, namely, Mr. Saville Rowe and Mr. Bolton Rowe. _Diplomacy_ was the English name of the famous play, and there were seven men in it and five women. I knew the play, having seen it performed to perfection by Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and their company; and the come-down from them to the Clapham Macreadies was, of course, tragically abrupt. But, as a critic, I naturally made allowance for the gulf that was fixed between professional and amateur acting, combined with the differences between an Assembly Room and a proper theatre. There was much to praise; and no doubt if you are beginning to be an actor yourself and just finding out the fearful difficulties of the stage, it makes you more merciful than if you are a critic who has never himself tried it, or knows in the least what it feels like. After the third act, the assistant acting manager came to me again, on his way to others, and said in a hopeful voice: “Going strong—eh?” “D’you mean me, or the play?” I asked, not in the least intending a joke; but he took it for such and evinced considerable amusement. “You’ll be the death of me,” he said. “You’re a born humourist. I expect I should be surprised if I knew your name.” “Very likely you would,” I replied guardedly. But of course I kept hidden under the critical veil and preferred to remain anonymous; because, to have told him that my name was merely Corkey, and that I was a clerk in a fire insurance office, would have made him under-value my criticism; whereas, in reality, some of the greatest critics of the drama the world has ever known, such as Charles Lamb, have pursued the avocation of clerk with great lustre and great honour to themselves and their employers. The assistant acting manager asked me to come behind after it was over and be introduced to some of the actors and actresses. He evidently observed that I was still in my first youth and might be dazzled; but though I should very much have liked to fall in with this suggestion, I felt that my critical faculty might be nipped in the bud, so to speak, if I approached the amateur histrion in the flesh on terms of equality.