_THE PLAYS OF ARTHUR W. PINERO_ Paper cover, 1s 6d; cloth, 2s 6d each _THE TIMES_ _THE PROFLIGATE_ _THE CABINET MINISTER_ _THE HOBBY-HORSE_ _LADY BOUNTIFUL_ _THE MAGISTRATE_ _DANDY DICK_ _SWEET LAVENDER_ _THE SCHOOLMISTRESS_ _THE WEAKER SEX_ _THE AMAZONS_ [A]_THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY_ _THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH_ _THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT_ _THE PRINCESS AND THE BUTTERFLY_ _TRELAWNY OF THE “WELLS”_ [B]_THE GAY LORD QUEX_ _IRIS_ _LETTY_ _A WIFE WITHOUT A SMILE_ _HIS HOUSE IN ORDER_ _THE THUNDERBOLT_ _MID-CHANNEL_ _PRESERVING MR. PANMURE_ _THE “MIND THE PAINT” GIRL_ THE PINERO BIRTHDAY BOOK Selected and Arranged by MYRA HAMILTON With a Portrait, cloth extra, price 2s 6d. _LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN_ FOOTNOTES: [A] This Play can be had in library form, 4to, cloth with a portrait, 5s. [B] A Limited Edition of this play on hand-made paper, with a new portrait, 10s net. _THE PROFLIGATE_ _A PLAY_ _In Four Acts_ _By ARTHUR W. PINERO_ “_It is a good and soothfast saw; Half-roasted never will be raw; No dough is dried once more to meal, No crock new-shapen by the wheel; You can’t turn curds to milk again, Nor Now, by wishing back to Then; And having tasted stolen honey, You can’t buy innocence for money._” _LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN_ _First Printed, 1891_ _New Impressions, 1902, 1909, 1914_ _All applications respecting amateur performances of this play must be made to Mr. Pinero’s Agents, Samuel French Limited, 26 Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C._ _Copyright_ INTRODUCTORY NOTE IT is now more than four years since “The Profligate” was written, and in the interval we have seen many conflicting influences at work upon the theatre, many signs of progress; but in June 1887, although the dramatic atmosphere was full of agitation and uncertainty, and the clamorous plaints of the pessimists were loud, the bolt of Norwegian naturalism had not yet fallen upon our stage, Ibsen was still, as far as England was concerned, an exotic of the library. Mr. Pinero, however, appears to have been an unswerving optimist in the face of spreading pessimism; he evidently felt that the air was clearing, that the period was approaching when the British dramatist might begin to assert his artistic independence, and at least attempt to write plays which should, by means of simple and reasonable dramatic deduction, record actual experience flowing in the natural irregular rhythm of life, which should at the same time embody lofty ideals of conduct and of character. So he wrote “The Profligate,” wrote it as he explained, to fit no particular theatrical company, fettered the free development of his ideas by no exigencies of managerial expediency.