ys one ought to see this Japanese man in
_Romeo and Juliet_. I hear the way he swarms up the creeper in the balcony
scene is quite too wonderful. They made him do it four times the first
night."

Thus we are left with six evenings of duty and one of enjoyment, unless
Angela happens to hear that there is a 'cellist from Spitzbergen or a
Bolshevik soprano whom it is social death not to be able to discuss. In
that case we get no fun at all.

The Hewetsons, who live in London and can enjoy all these opportunities for
improvement and still have time for Mr. ROBEY and the rest, think me a
terrible Philistine. But, as I pointed out to Hewetson, he suffers just as
acutely when he has a holiday and goes to Paris. Hewetson holds that there
is only one theatre in Paris, the Varietes. But by the time he has
accompanied Mrs. H. to the Francais, the Opera, the Opera Comique and the
Odeon, to say nothing of the Theatre des Arts, he is due back at the
office. When I explained this to him, his whole attitude changed at once,
and he implored me to accept his subscription for shares in my company. But
his heart-rending account of his last visit to Paris, before the War, when
he and Mrs. H. spent two days hunting round the Louvre (Musee) under the
impression that the RODINS were kept there, suggested a wider scope for my
schemes, and it seemed to me that the only fair way of acknowledging this
was to make Hewetson a director.

And now I must tell you about my company, for, although we are in danger of
becoming over-capitalised, there are still one or two shares we are willing
to sacrifice, practically at par. The company is known as High-brows, Ltd.,
and is "designed to meet the requirements" of the countless thousands who
detect a familiar note in the conversation with Angela just recorded. The
idea is simple and, like all simple ideas, great. We buy a house in each of
the chief capitals of the civilised world, and to this house the visitor
hurries as soon as he has left his luggage at the hotel. Each house will be
arranged in the same manner, so that no knowledge of the language of the
country is required to enable the stranger to find his way about.

The ground floor will consist of one large hall or room, combining the
functions of waiting-room and Fine Art Gallery. Reproductions of the
principal pictures and statues of the national museums will occupy two
walls and the centre carpet, the remaining walls being hung with the more
ast