ll hearing anything about
them at that time. I should think I would if they'd been there."

"That's odd. I should surely have thought you'd have heard of them.
They've been well known over there for some years. I suppose, though,
they play the provinces, like every one else. No, they don't play
Shakespeare all the time, by any means; they couldn't do it and live."

"You mean that they couldn't get audiences? Why, some actors do.
Mantell, for instance--and Sothern and Marlowe. They seem to go on
year after year, and they must be at least moderately successful, or
they wouldn't keep it up."

"Mantell ought to; he is a real actor--of the traditional school, of
course--but great, all the same. It has always seemed to me that his
Lear was one of the fine performances of the stage to-day. But even
Mantell has to travel halfway across the country every season; he
couldn't stay in New York--no, nor in intellectual and appreciative
Boston, either. And I doubt whether a man would fare much better
trying to play nothing but Shakespeare in London. No, this man can
play virtually anything; he made his first big hit--in recent years,
that is--playing Maldonado in Pinero's 'Iris.'"

"But go back to Sothern and Marlowe. They go on Shakespearing, world
without end."

"If you can call it Shakespeare. I have never been able to see much in
their way of doing it. Marlowe does some things well, but I confess
that to see her now as Juliet is too great a strain on me. As for
Sothern, he's a good romantic actor, but not a Shakespearean one."

"They play this---'The Taming of the Shrew'--do they not? It seems to
me they were here last spring."

"Quite likely. I think they try. One wet and miserable night I went
to see. But remembering, as I did, the immortal Katherine of Rehan and
the hardly less magnificent Petruchio of Skinner, I never should have
gone. There was only one redeeming feature."

"What was that?"

"When the scene comes, watch how this man carries Katherine off.
That's one great test. See if he backs her up onto a bench; see if he
guides her premeditated fall to the precise center of equilibrium of
his shoulders; see if he staggers painfully off with his knees
tottering, almost flapping beneath him. By heavens, I have seen
Skinner abduct a one hundred and sixty pound Katherine with as little
effort as if she had been a wicker basket full of eggshells!"

"Is this dramatic criticism?" asked Helen, mal