THREE PLAYS BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE DAY’S PLAY THE HOLIDAY ROUND ONCE A WEEK ONCE ON A TIME NOT THAT IT MATTERS IF I MAY FIRST PLAYS SECOND PLAYS THE SUNNY SIDE MR. PIM THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY THREE PLAYS BY A. A. MILNE LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1923 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. & R. CLARK, LTD., EDINBURGH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To DAFF FOR MAKING THE FAIRY-BOOKS COME TRUE Applications regarding Amateur Performances of the Plays in this Volume should be addressed to Samuel French, Ltd., 26 Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C.2. CONTENTS PAGE THE GREAT BROXOPP 1 THE DOVER ROAD 93 THE TRUTH ABOUT BLAYDS 179 _These plays are printed here in the order in which they were written._ INTRODUCTION I wanted not to write an introduction to these three plays, but circumstances are too strong for me. Yet, after all, what is to be said but, to the public, “Here they are; like them,” and, to the critics, “Here they are; fall on them”? But apparently this is not enough. I must think of something else. There was a happy time when I was a critic myself. I, too, have lived in that Arcady. What nights were then! Red-letter nights when the play was bad, and in one short hour, standing on the body of the dramatist, I had delivered my funeral oration; black-letter nights when the play was good, and it took six hours of solid pushing, myself concealed by the fellow’s person, to place him fairly in the sun. The years slip away. Yet even now I have something of my old style. Here, lest you should think I am boasting, is my _Hamlet_. Yes, by the enterprise of _The Saturday Review_, I was present on that historic first night. For, lately, this paper stimulated its readers, with promise of reward, to imagine themselves there as critics, and I brushed up my old black doublet and went with the others. Interested, you know, in this young provincial dramatist; hoping against hope that here at last was the.... However, luckily the play was a bad one, and (proud am I to say it) I won the prize. HAMLET