Hall, decorated in the
1880 taste. Allegories by Watts on the wall_--'_Time cutting the corns
of Eternity,' 'Love whistling down the ear of Life,' 'Youth catching
Crabs,' &c. Windows by Burne-Jones and Morris. A Peacock Blue Hungarian
Band playing music on Dolmetsch instruments by Purcell, Byrde, Bull,
Bear, Palestrina, and Wagner, &c. Various well-known people crowd the
Stage. Among the_ LIVING _may be mentioned Mr. George Street; Mr. Max
Beerbohm and his brother; Mr. Albert Rothenstein and his brother, &c. The
company is intellectual and artistic; not in any way smart. The Savile
and Athenaeum Clubs are well represented, but not the Garrick, the
Gardenia, nor any of the establishments in the vicinity of Leicester
Square. The Princess Salome is greeting some of the arrivals_--_The
Warden of Keble, The President of Magdalen Coll., Oxford, and others--who
stare at her in a bewildered fashion_.

THE DEVIL. Silence, please, ladies and gentlemen, for his Excellency the
Commander. (_A yellowish pallor moves over the audience; effect by
Gordon Craig_.)

THE STATUE. It was my intention this evening to make a few observations
on flogging in the Navy, Vaccination, the Censor, Vivisection, the Fabian
Society, the Royal Academy, Compound Chinese Labour, Style, Simple
Prohibition, Vulgar Fractions, and other kindred subjects. But as I
opened the paper this morning, my eye caught these headlines: 'Future of
the House of Lords,' 'Mr. Edmund Gosse at home,' 'The Nerves of Lord
Northcliffe,' 'Interview with Mr. Winston Churchill,' 'Reported
Indisposition of Miss Edna May.' A problem was thus presented to me.
Will I, shall I, ought I to speak to my friends _here_--ahem!--and
elsewhere, on the subject about which they came to hear me speak.
(_Applause_.) No. I said; the bounders must be disappointed; otherwise
they will know what to expect. You must always surprise your audience.
When it has been advertised (sufficiently) that I am going to speak about
the truth, for example, the audience comes here expecting me to speak
about fiction. The only way to surprise them is to speak the truth and
that I always do. Nothing surprises English people more than truth; they
don't like it; they don't pay any attention to those (such as my friend
Mr. H. G. Wells and myself) who _trade_ in truth; but they listen and go
away saying, 'How very whimsical and paradoxical it all is,' and 'What a
clever adventurer the fellow is, to be sur