or two of elegant light labour. And when he spoke of the play as being “De Musset in rather good form” they nodded slightly with little understanding smiles as if De Musset and his various states of form were matters of the most familiar knowledge to them.
What was the effect, then, of this and other such-like talk upon these young men eager for fame and athirst for glory in the great art-world of the city and the theatre? It gave them, first of all, a delightful sense of being in the know about rare and precious things, of rubbing shoulders with great actors and actresses and other celebrated people, of being expert in all the subtlest processes of the theatre, of being travelled, urbane, sophisticated and assured.
When Professor Hatcher casually suggested that they might “brush up on their French a bit” before going to a performance of a French play, they felt like cosmopolites who were at home in all the great cities of the world. True, “their French had grown a little rusty”—it had been some time since they were last in Paris—a member of the French Academy, no doubt, might detect a few slight flaws in their pronunciation—but all that would arrange itself by a little light and easy “polishing”—“tout s’arrange, hein?” as we say upon the boulevards.
Again, Professor Hatcher’s pleasant and often delightfully gay anecdotes about the famous persons he had known and with whom he was on such familiar terms—told always casually, apropos of some topic of discussion, and never dragged in or laboured by pretence—“The last time I was in London, Pinero and I were having lunch together one day at the Savoy”—or “I was spending the week-end with Henry Arthur Jones”—or “It’s very curious you should mention that. You know, Barrie was saying the same thing to me the last time I saw him”—or—“Apropos of this discussion, I have a letter here from’Gene O’Neill which bears on that very point. Perhaps you would be interested in knowing what he has to say about it.”—All this, of course, was cakes and ale to these young people—it made them feel wonderfully near and intimate with all these celebrated people, and with the enchanted world of art and of the theatre in which they wished to cut a figure.
It gave them also a feeling of amused superiority at the posturings and antics of what, with a slight intonation of disdain, they called “the commercial producers”—the Shuberts, Belascos, and others of this kind. Thus, when Professor Hatcher told them how he had done some pioneer service in Boston for the Russian Players and had received a telegram from the Jewish producer in New York who was managing them, to this
