The cause for these significant reactions was the _mise en scène_ of the tiny vacant stage. It consisted of three dead-black walls, a dead-black ceiling, and a dead-black floor-cloth. In the back wall there was a high, narrow crimson door with a black knob. A tall straight-legged table and one straight high-backed chair, both lacquered in crimson, were the only furniture, except for a slender crimson-lacquered perch, down right, to which was chained a yellow, green and crimson macaw. And through the crimson door presently entered--undulated, rather--a personable though poisonous young woman in a trailing robe of vivid yellow and green. The play that followed, happily a brief one, was called--as Jimmy and I learned from our programs at its conclusion--"Polly." It consisted of a monologue delivered by the poisonous young woman to the macaw, occasionally varied by _ad lib._ screams and chuckles from that evil white-eyed bird. From the staccato remarks of the poisonous young woman, we, the audience, were to deduce the erratic eroticism of an _âme damnée_. It was not particularly difficult to do so, nor was it particularly entertaining. As a little adventure in supercynicism, "Polly," in short, was not particularly successful. It needed, and had not been able to obtain, the boulevard wit of a Sacha Guitry to carry it off. But the poisonous young woman had an exquisitely proportioned figure, and her arms, bare to the slight shoulder-straps, were quite faultless. Minor effects of this kind have, even on Broadway, been known to save more than one bad quarter hour from complete collapse.... No, it was not the author's lines that carried us safely through this first fifteen minutes of diluted Strindberg-Schnitzler! And the too deliberately bizarre _mise en scène_, though for a moment it piqued curiosity, had soon proved wearisome, and we were glad--at least, Jimmy and I were--to have it veiled from our eyes. The curtain rolled down, nevertheless, to ecstatic cries and stubbornly sustained applause. Raised lights revealed an excited, chattering band of the faithful. The poisonous young woman took four curtain calls and would seemingly, from her parting gesture, have drawn us collectively to her fine bosom with those faultless, unreluctant arms. And the maiden on my right shuddered forth to her escort, "I'm thrilled, darling! Feel them--feel my hands--they're _moon-cold_! They always are, you know, when I'm thrilled!" "You can't beat this much, Mr. Hunt," whispered Jimmy, on my left. "It's bughouse."