make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very
carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken
for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient
privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar's foibles by laughing at
them, whilst introducing enough obvious and outrageous fiction to
relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and
responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should
certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it
contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have
written in 1913.

The Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in
England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre,
London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as
Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as
the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley
Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca.



PROLOGUE

The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes
through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks
through the curtains to someone behind them.

THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to
maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight
of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on
the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the