Our first question on arrival was, were we late? This question seems to be a common form of politeness with notable comedians, and is probably designed to take the wind out of the sails of possible criticism. No, we were not late—though everybody seemed to be suspiciously ready and, one feared, waiting. They were a crowd of ladies and gentlemen in elaborate evening dress, all with faces painted a rich _café au lait_ or else salmon-colour, and very odd such a crowd looked against the whitewashed walls and bare beams of the disused factory. The scenery looked even more odd. It presented the middle fragments of everything without any edges. There was a vast baronial hall, decorated with suits of armour and the heaviest furniture, but without either ceiling or walls. There was a staircase hung, so to speak, in the air, leading to a doorway, which was just the framework of a door, standing alone, let into nothing. It seemed uncanny, until you remembered the simple fact that the camera can cover just as much, or as little, of a scene as it chooses. Great glaring “cinema” lights—I had not seen them since the Beckett-Carpentier flight—cast an unearthly pallor upon the few unpainted faces. The crowd of painted ladies and gentlemen hung about, waiting for their scene with what seemed to me astonishing patience. But patience, I suspect, is a necessary virtue at all rehearsals, whether “spoken” or “silent.” And that distinction brings me to the producer. It was for him that I should have liked to have thought of it. For he fell to talking to me about his art, the art of production, and of cinematography in general, and I found myself forced to make some comparisons with what I had, up to that moment, always thought of as the “regular” stage. But evidently, as Jeffery said of Wordsworth’s poem, this would never do. The producer might have thought I was reflecting upon his art, about which he was so enthusiastic, as something “irregular.” At last, after deplorable hesitation, I found my phrase—the “other” stage. Dreadfully tame, I admit, but safe; it hurt nobody. Even now, however, I have an uneasy feeling that the producer was not quite satisfied with it. I ought perhaps to have accompanied it with a shrug, some sign of apology for so much as recognizing the existence of “other” stages of anything else, in short, than what was, at that moment and on that spot, _the_ stage, the “silent” stage, the stage of moving pictures. It was like speaking of Frith’s “Derby Day” in the presence of a Cubist. Artistic enthusiasts must be allowed their little exclusions.