"Skeffington's have written urging me to undertake a rather original
advertising scheme. They're very pressing, and they've enclosed a
tenner in advance. They want me to do them a tragedy in four acts. I
sent them the scenario last week. I sketched out a skeleton plot in
which the hero is addicted to a strictly moderate use of Skeffington's
Sloe Gin. His wife adopts every conceivable measure to wean him from
this harmless, even praiseworthy indulgence. At the end of the second
act she thinks she has cured him. He has promised to gratify what he
regards as merely a capricious whim on her part. 'I will give--yes, I
will give it up, darling!' 'George! George!' She falls on his neck.
Over her shoulder he winks at the audience, who realise that there is
more to come. Curtain. In Act 3 the husband is seen sitting alone in
his study. His wife has gone to a party. The man searches in a cupboard
for something to read. Instead of a novel, however, he lights on a
bottle of Skeffington's Sloe Gin. Instantly the old overwhelming
craving returns. He hesitates. What does it matter? She will never
know. He gulps down glass after glass. He sinks into an intoxicated
stupor. His wife enters. Curtain again. Act 4. The draught of nectar
tasted in the former act after a period of enforced abstinence has
produced a deadly reaction. The husband, who previously improved his
health, his temper, and his intellect by a strictly moderate use of
Skeffington's Sloe Gin, has now become a ghastly dipsomaniac. His wife,
realising too late the awful effect of her idiotic antagonism to
Skeffington's, experiences the keenest pangs of despair. She drinks
laudanum, and the tragedy is complete."

"Fine," I said, finishing the coffee.

"In a deferential postscript," said Julian, "Skeffington's suggest an
alternative ending, that the wife should drink, not laudanum, but Sloe