g_.

JENNIFER (_with a bright smile_). Mr. Vedrenne, I have just had a
telegram saying that my husband, Leo, was killed in his motor after
leaving me at the Synagogue. His last words were: 'Jennifer, promise me
that you will wear mourning if I die, merely to mark the difference
between Dubedat and myself.' This afternoon I am going to marry
Blenkinsop. How are the sales going?

VEDRENNE. Well, I think we might have the catechism or the churching of
heroines. What is your name?

JENNIFER. Jennifer.

VEDRENNE. Where did you get that name?

JENNIFER. From Bernard Shaw in my baptism.

MR. REDFORD (_Licenser of Plays_). Mr. Shaw, I really must point out
that this passage comes from the Anglican Prayer-book. Are you aware of
that? I have a suggestion of my own for ending the play.

BERNARD SHAW. Oh, shut up! Let us have my ten commandments.

GRANVILLE BARKER. My dear Shaw, you sent them to Wells for revision and
he lost them in the Tube. I can remember the first one, 'Maude spake
these words and said: "Thou shalt have none other Shaws but me."'

BERNARD SHAW. How careless of Wells. I remember the second: 'Do not
indulge in craven imitation.'

W. L. COURTNEY. The third commandment runs: 'Thou shalt not covet George
Alexander.'

GRANVILLE BARKER. One of them runs: 'Do not commit yourself to Beerbohm
Tree, though his is His Majesty's . . . ' But we shall never get them
right. We must offer a reward for their recovery. I vote that Walkley
now says the _credo_. That, I think, expresses every one's sentiment.

A. B. WALKLEY (_reluctantly_). I believe in Bernard Shaw, in Granville
Barker, and (_heartily_) in _The Times_.

WILLIAM ARCHER. Plaudite, missa est.

(1907.)

CURTAIN.

THE JADED INTELLECTUALS. A DIALOGUE.

_Scene: The Smoking-room of the Elivas Club_.

_Characters_: LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS, _aetat. 54, a distinguished literary
critic, and_ LUKE CULLUS, _a rich connoisseur of art and life. They are
not smoking nor drinking spirits. One is sipping barley water, the other
Vichy_.

LUKE CULLUS. You are a dreadful pessimist!

LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS. Alas! there is no such thing in these days. We are
merely disappointed optimists. When Walter Pater died I did not realise
that English literature expired. Yet the event excited hardly any
interest in the Press. Our leading weekly, the _Spectator_, merely
mentioned that Brasenose College, Oxford, had lost an excellent Dean.