Well, what the committee’s opinion on this subject was, we can only conjecture. What it did is a matter of common knowledge. It absolutely refused to lend its support: why, we can but guess. Perhaps they were a little piqued at the infrequency of Hayes’s appearance on the vaudeville stage; perhaps they had advanced so far into the land of tabulated orders that they could see no safe withdrawal. Perhaps.... But it is unfair to impute motives to any one. One can merely state facts, and register one’s personal opinion that collectively humanity is rather stupid, and that if committees are allowed a free hand, they usually do manage to mess things up somehow; and that the conclusions at which they arrive do not at all represent the opinions of those individuals framing them. I remember that some four and a half years ago I received a sufficiently severe beating from the School’s Games Committee, on the ground that I had played roughly in a house match; and that within a week six of the seven members of that committee had apologised to me in person for their assault. This, as a testimonial to my moral worth, was no doubt comforting; but as an alleviation for the pain of those fourteen strokes, it was an inadequate recompense. And the treatment of Milton was not very different. The committee, which consisted of ten officers, refused him their support; but each individual member of the community considered it a grave injustice, and one and all they came up to Hayes with apologies to the tune of-- “Awfully sorry, old man, about this show of yours. I wish we could have helped you. I’d love to myself, only the committee won’t let me. Beastly nuisance I call it, a man isn’t his own master any longer. Awfully sorry, old man.” By the time the tenth member had expressed a similar regret, Milton Hayes began to wonder whether the committee was a blind force, with a will independent of its component parts. He was naturally gratified to receive so many sympathetic condolences, but they did not materially assist him in his task of finding a company to produce his libretto. However, he beat the by-ways and hedges, and finally amassed a nondescript community, which for want of a better name he called the “Buckshees.”