rt, telling him that he
had made engagements for the play, and would like to fix a date on which
he should read the manuscript to the company. "Any day'll suit me,"
Gilbert had informed him, and Sir Geoffrey thereupon settled that the
reading should take place two days later. "I suppose," he said, "you'd
like to attend the rehearsals?" and Gilbert, forgetting his resolution
to fly from Lady Cecily, said that he would. He thought that the
experience would be very valuable to him. He became so excited at the
prospect of seeing a play of his performed at a West End theatre that he
was unable to sit still, and his language, always extravagant, became
absurd. He broke every rule that Roger had invented. "It'll take all the
royalties you'll receive to pay off this score!" Roger said, thrusting
the fine-book before him.

"Poo!" said Gilbert. "I'll buy up the Ten Commandments with one night's
royalty! Oh, it's going to be a success, I tell you. It'll run for a
year ... more than that ... two years!..." He began to estimate the
number of performances the play would receive. "Six evening performances
and two matinees every week for fifty-two weeks! Eight times fifty-two,
Roger ... you were a Second Wrangler, you ought to know that! Four
hundred and sixteen! Lordy God, what a lot! And if I get ten pounds
every time it's done ... Oh-h-h! Four thousand, one hundred and sixty
pounds! And then there'll be American rights and provincial rights....
I'll tell you what I'll do, coves! I'll buy you all a stick of
barley-sugar each, or a penn'orth of acid-drops ... which 'ud you
like?..."

It was during the rehearsals of "The Magic Casement" that "Broken
Spears" was published.

"It isn't as good as 'Drusilla,'" they said to Henry, when they had read
it, "but it'll be more popular!"

It was. The critics who had praised "Drusilla" were not impressed by
"Broken Spears," but the critics who had been indifferent to "Drusilla"
praised "Broken Spears" so extravagantly that six thousand copies of it
were sold in six months, apart from the copies which were sold to the
lending libraries, and the sale of "Drusilla," in consequence of the
success of "Broken Spears," increased from three hundred and
seventy-five copies to one thousand five hundred and eighty. Mr. Quinn,
in thanking Henry for a copy of it, merely said, in direct reference to
the book, "_I see you've been tickling the English. Don't go on doing
it!_" and the effect of this criticism