“Oh, bother, I forget,” said Patty, “and, anyhow, I don’t think she has as much to do with _revues_ as uncle pretends. Give me the real muse of _revue_ who inspired Mr. Keys with his German waiter and his Spanish mandolinist and his Japanese juggler and——” “This,” I said, to put an end to Patty’s indiscreet prattle, “must be the muse of geography.” Patty gave me no change out of my half-crown. The boatman said he didn’t happen to have any. So much for Selina’s management! THE SILENT STAGE The spoken drama and the silent stage. I came across this dichotomy in _The Times_ the other day, not without a pang, for it was a day too late. It is not a true dichotomy. It does not distinguish accurately between the story told by living actors to our faces and the story told by successive photographs of such actors. For the “silent stage” would cover pantomime, a form of drama, and a very ancient form, acted by living actors. It is not true, but it is for practical uses true enough. In life we have to make the best of rough approximations. I would have used this one gratefully had it occurred to me in my moment of need. But it did not. Let me explain. One of our more notable comedians (I purposely put it thus vaguely, partly out of discretion, partly with a bid for that interest which the mystery of anonymity is apt to confer upon an otherwise matter-of-fact narrative, as George Borrow well knew)—one of our most notable comedians, then, had asked me to accompany him to a “cinema” rehearsal wherein he was cast for the principal part. I eagerly accepted, because the art of the “cinema” is becoming so important in our daily life that one really ought to learn something about it, and, moreover, because the _cuisine_ of any art (see the Diary of the De Goncourts _passim_) is a fascinating thing in itself. Our rehearsal was to be miles away, in the far East of London, and the mere journey was a geographical adventure. The scene was a disused factory, and a disused factory has something of the romantic melancholy of a disaffected cathedral—not the romance of ruins, but the romance of a fabric still standing and valid, but converted to alien uses.