Selina looked at me. There was a silent pause that would have made anybody else feel uncomfortable, but I was equal to the occasion. I snatched Selina’s book out of her hand, and said, cheerfully, “You see, Selina, it’s all explained here. Wonderful fellow, Bergson. ‘Something mechanical encrusted upon the living,’ that’s the secret of the comic. Depend upon it, he had seen George Robey and the stuffed monkey. And if Bergson, who’s a tremendous swell, member of the institute, and all that, why not Patty and I?” “And where,” asked Selina, with a rueful glance at the Bergson book, as though she began to distrust theories of the comic, “where was this precious performance?” “At the Alhambra,” answered Patty, simply. “The Alhambra! I remember Chateaubriand once visited it,” said Selina, who is nothing if not literary, “but I didn’t know it was the haunt of philosophers.” I looked as though it was, but Patty tactlessly broke in, “Oh, I wish you two wouldn’t talk about philosophers. Can’t one laugh at Mr. Robey without having him explained by Bergson? Anyhow, I don’t believe he can explain Mr. Nelson Keys.” “Another of your historical actors?” inquired Selina with some bitterness. “Yes, Selina, dear, and much more historical than Mr. Robey. He played Beau Brummell and they were all there, Fox and Sheridan and the Prince of Wales, you know, all out of your favourite Creevey, and they said ‘egad’ and ‘la’ and ‘monstrous fine,’ and bowed and congee’d like anything—oh, it was awfully historical.” Selina, a great reader of memoirs, was a little mollified. “Come,” she said, “this is better—though the Regency is another dangerous period. I’m glad, however, that Londoners seem to be looking to the theatre for a little historical instruction.” “Yes, Selina,” I said, feeling that it would be dangerous to let Patty speak just at that moment, “and there is a certain type of contemporary play, called _revue_, which recognizes that demand and seldom, if ever, fails to cater for it. In _revues_ I have renewed acquaintance with the heroes of classical antiquity, with prominent crusaders, with Queen Elizabeth, with the Grand Monarque—a whole course of history, in fact. Let Bergson explain that, if he can. And, what is more wonderful still, our _revue_ artists, whose talent is usually devoted to provoking laughter, seem willingly to forgo it for the honour of appearing as an historical personage. Mr. Robey and Mr. Keys, I should tell you, are both professional laughter-provokers, indeed are the heads of their profession, yet one is content to posture as Louis Quinze and the other as Beau Brummell without any real chance of being funny. So the past ever exerts its prestige over us. So the muse of history still weaves her spell.” “Which was the muse of history, Patty, dear?” said Selina, whose equanimity was now happily restored.