on the next night. For a stage dinner a certain amount of genuine
sponge-cake has to be made up to look like fish, chicken or cutlet. In
novels the hero has often "pushed his meals away untasted," but no stage
hero would do anything so unnatural as this. The etiquette is to have two
bites before the butler and the three footmen whisk away the plate. Two
bites are made, and the bread is crumbled, with an air of great
eagerness; indeed, one feels that in real life the guest would clutch
hold of the footman and say, "Half a mo', old chap, I haven't _nearly_
finished"; but the actor is better schooled than this. Besides, the thing
is coming back again as chicken directly.

But it is the cigarette which chiefly has brought the modern drama to its
present state of perfection. Without the stage cigarette many an epigram
would pass unnoticed, many an actor's hands would be much more
noticeable; and the man who works the fireproof safety curtain would lose
even the small amount of excitement which at present attaches to his job.

Now although it is possible, in the case of a few men at the top of the
profession, to leave the conduct of the cigarette entirely to the actor,
you will find it much more satisfactory to insert in the stage directions
the particular movements (with match and so forth) that you wish carried
out. Let us assume that Lord Arthur asks Lord John what a cynic is--the
question of what a cynic is having arisen quite naturally in the course
of the plot. Let us assume further that you wish Lord John to reply, "A
cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing." It has been said before, but you may feel that it is quite time
it was said again; besides, for all the audience knows, Lord John may
simply be quoting. Now this answer, even if it comes quite fresh to the
stalls, will lose much of its effect if it is said without the assistance
of a cigarette. Try it for yourself.