THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE


THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON


A COMEDY




ACT I

AT LOAM HOUSE, MAYFAIR


A moment before the curtain rises, the Hon. Ernest Woolley drives up
to the door of Loam House in Mayfair. There is a happy smile on his
pleasant, insignificant face, and this presumably means that he is
thinking of himself. He is too busy over nothing, this man about
town, to be always thinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he
almost never thinks of any other person. Probably Ernest's great
moment is when he wakes of a morning and realises that he really is
Ernest, for we must all wish to be that which is our ideal. We can
conceive him springing out of bed light-heartedly and waiting for
his man to do the rest. He is dressed in excellent taste, with just
the little bit more which shows that he is not without a sense of
humour: the dandiacal are often saved by carrying a smile at the
whole thing in their spats, let us say. Ernest left Cambridge the
other day, a member of The Athenaeum (which he would be sorry to