mpagne"
still lingers, and I have heard it suggested, in the country, that after
the play is over we are regaled by a banquet behind the scenes:
"regaled" was the word actually used. It is not difficult to answer that
suggestion since most of the critics who count are busily consuming
midnight oil, not champagne, as soon as the play is over, and then go to
bed tired. Mr Archer, in feigned indignation, once complained that he
had never been insulted by the offer of a bribe, and, if my memory is
accurate, he even suggested a doubt whether there existed a manager who
would lend him half-a-crown! He certainly underrated his weight as well
as his value. Yet there is a memorable utterance of a manager to the
effect that those of the critics worth bribing could not be bribed, and
those willing to be bribed were not worth bribing. Still, there have
been instances of efforts. A manager, now no more, once sent an
expensive trifle at Christmas to one of us, who, embarrassed by it,
indulged in a graceful but rather costly victory by sending a still more
expensive trifle to the manager on his birthday, and this closed the
incident. Into the nice question whether and how far, apart from
anything so vulgar as bribery, we are always strictly impartial I do not
care to venture; it may be that even Brutus was sometimes "influenced"
without knowing it.

It is painful to be honest and yet suspected. The other day it was
brutally suggested that the formation of the Society of Dramatic Critics
had some connexion with the coming into force of the Act for the
suppression of bribery. Foreigners always presume that we have itching
palms, salved in due course by the managers or by the players. Not long
ago one of us received a letter from a Continental artist saying that
she was about to appear in London; that for a long time past she had
received much pleasure and profit from his articles in _The ----_: that
she was very anxious that an article concerning her should appear in
_The ----_; and that if he would be so charming as to arrange it, she
would be glad to pay any price--the word "any" was underlined.

No photograph accompanied the letter. No answer came to his reply;
probably she was surprised at the attitude adopted by him in referring
her to the advertisement manager.

It used to be--perhaps is still--the custom in France for players and
dramatists to call upon the critics before or immediately after the
_premieres_; and not long ago