BROXOPP. Was there ever a Great Broxopp? Or was it just a fluke, Nancy, twenty-five years ago? NANCY. No, no! BROXOPP. Then why——? NANCY (_with a sigh_). It was twenty-five years ago. BROXOPP. Yes. Never again. On this day The Great Chillingham died. (_He drops his head into his hands._) NANCY. But something else was born. (_He shakes his head._) (_She says quietly_) Yes, Chillingham—and Son. (_Slowly he raises his head and looks at her. His eyes begin to light up. He rises, slowly. There is a smile about his mouth now. He is seeing himself as the Head of CHILLINGHAM AND SON. Look—he is striking an attitude! All is saved. NANCY regards him fondly. CHILLINGHAM AND SON._) THE DOVER ROAD A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS PEOPLE IN THE PLAY THE HOUSE Dominic. The Staff. Mr. Latimer. THE GUESTS Leonard. Anne. Eustasia. Nicholas. * * * * * _The Scene is the reception-room of MR. LATIMER’S house, a little way off the Dover Road._ * * * * * The first performance of this play in London took place at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on June 7, 1922, with the following cast: _Dominic_ Allan Aynesworth. _Mr. Latimer_ Henry Ainley. _Leonard_ Nicholas Hannen. _Anne_ Nancy Atkin. _Eustasia_ Athene Seyler. _Nicholas_ John Deverell. THE DOVER ROAD ACT I _What MR. LATIMER prefers to call the reception-room of his house is really the hall. You come straight into it through the heavy oak front door. But this door is so well built, so well protected by a thick purple curtain, and the room so well warmed by central heating, that none of the usual disadvantages of a hall on a November night attaches to it. Just now, of course, all the curtains are drawn, so that the whole of this side of the hall is purple-hung. In the middle of the room, a little to the right, is a mahogany table, clothless, laid for three. A beautiful blue bowl, filled with purple anemones, helps, with the silver and the old cut glass, to decorate it. Over the whole room there is something of an Arabian-night-adventure air. In the daytime, perhaps, it is an ordinary hall, furnished a trifle freakishly, but in the night time one wonders what is going to happen next._ _DOMINIC, tall, stout, and grave, the major-domo of the house, in a butler’s old-fashioned evening-dress, comes in. He stands looking at the room to see that all is as it should be, then walks to the table and gives a little touch to it here and there. He turns round and waits a moment. The Staff materialises suddenly—two footmen and two chambermaids. The men come from the left, the women from the right; over their clothes, too, MR. LATIMER has been a little freakish. They stand in a line._ * * * * * DOMINIC. The blue room in the east wing is ready?