ALICE. He said:--"I was thinking of having one myself, Miss Whistler."

[And there follows her through the curtains a hand and arm holding a
foaming pint of beer, which she takes across to her Uncle. The beer
goes the way of all beer.

UNCLE EDWARD. [After wiping his mouth, most politely, with the cheerfullest
looking handkerchief you ever saw.] On the warm side. Go on with your bit.

[Alice takes her talking place again, feet together, hands behind her.
Then a long breath.

ALICE. So the years went by. And they acted in Italy, and they acted in
France, and they acted in England. Which is where we've got to now, in
about seventeen hundred and something. All sorts of odd people got added to
the company, and dropped out again on the journeys. In France they found
Pierrot. But, being a Frenchman, he hated travelling; so they left him
there. Nobody knows who Pierrot was ... at least I don't.

UNCLE EDWARD. My dear, if we start on what we don't know, we'll be here all
night ... and the next.

ALICE. I'll skip lots then ... all about Mr. Rich and the great Harlequins.
People liked them better than Garrick! And now we come to the next story.
It's England, and it's London. It's about Columbine running away. It must
always be about that. The hero runs away with her. Or, strictly speaking,
p'raps this time it's her that runs away with him.

UNCLE EDWARD. Grammar.