The fact that Arthur Wantage was to be seen and heard, nightly, in a brilliant comedy by the author of "Pious Aeneas," was not so much the attraction that drew people to his theatre, as was the fact that he had not yet, that season, delivered himself of a curtain speech. His curtain speeches were wont to be insults delivered in an elaborately honeyed manner; he took the pose of considering his audiences with contempt; he admired himself far more for his condescension in playing to them than he respected his audiences for having the taste to admire him. The comedy in which he was now appearing was the perfection of paradox. It pretended to be frivolous and was really philosophic. The kernel of real wisdom was behind the elaborately poised mask of wit. A delightful impertinence and exaggeration informed every line of the dialogue. The pose of inimitable, candid egoism showed under every situation. The play was typical of the author as well as of the player. It veiled, as thinly as possible, a deal of irony at the expense of the play going public; it took some of that public's dearest foibles and riddled them to shreds. It was currently reported that the only excuse for comparatively amicable relations between Wantage and O'Deigh, who had written this comedy, was the fact of there being an ocean between them. Even at that Wantage found it difficult to suffer the many praises he heard bestowed, not upon himself but O'Deigh. He had burst out in spleen at this adulation, once, in the hearing of an intimate. "My dear Arthur," said the other, "you strike me as very ungrateful. For my part, when I see your theatre crowded nightly, when I see how your exchequer fills steadily, it occurs to me that you should go down on your knees every night, and thank God that O'Deigh has done you such a stunning play." "Oh," was Wantage's grudging answer, "I do, you know I do. But I also say: Oh, God, why did it have to be by O'Deigh?"