never amusing."

My Manager pondered for a moment. "Let him be Solicitor General for
Ireland," he suggested.

I made a note of it.

"Your heroine," he continued, "is the daughter of a seaside lodging-
house keeper. My public do not recognize seaside lodgings. Why not
the daughter of an hotel proprietor? Even that will be risky, but we
might venture it." An inspiration came to him. "Or better still,
let the old man be the Managing Director of an hotel Trust: that
would account for her clothes."

Unfortunately I put the thing aside for a few months, and when I was
ready again the public taste had still further advanced. The doors
of the British Drama were closed for the time being on all but
members of the aristocracy, and I did not see my comic old man as a
Marquis, which was the lowest title that just then one dared to offer
to a low comedian.

Now how are we middle-class novelists and dramatists to continue to
live? I am aware of the obvious retort, but to us it absolutely is
necessary. We know only parlours: we call them drawing-rooms. At
the bottom of our middle-class hearts we regard them fondly: the
folding-doors thrown back, they make rather a fine apartment. The
only drama that we know takes place in such rooms: the hero sitting
in the gentleman's easy chair, of green repp: the heroine in the
lady's ditto, without arms--the chair, I mean. The scornful glances,
the bitter words of our middle-class world are hurled across these