What worried me most was that Mr. HOFFE should have so poor an idea of my intelligence as to suppose it possible to impart an atmosphere of probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault, tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be regarded _au grand_ (or, at worst, _au petit_) _sérieux_. The fun--and there were some very pleasant touches--was not so much the fun of a huge and preposterous joke, but rather the humour of character or incidental detail. The part of _Lord Glandeville_, who might have been made the most ridiculous butt of imposture, was treated quite solemnly. Indeed, our sympathies were provoked for a man whose finest instincts had been trifled with; who had been suffered to fall in love with the poet-soul of a girl only to find that she was the tool of a gang of rogues. One of them, _Dick Gilder_, might tell him that he (_Glandeville_) was an egoist and that he ought to have fallen in love with the girl's body, as he (_Gilder_) had done, instead of her supposed soul; but that did not help matters much, or prevent our feeling that this treatment of _Glandeville_ was no matter for laughter. And when I go and see a production of Mr. HAWTREY'S I want matter for laughter and nothing else.
The best individual performances were those of Mr. LYSTON LYLE--really excellent as a soldier of fortune--and Miss HELEN HAYE as _Lord Glandeville's_ aunt who lays herself out to defeat the matrimonial designs of the prodigy. Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was not perhaps at his very best as _Dick Gilder._ He wore an air of detachment and indulged his old habit of looking over the heads of his stage-audience. He had too many set speeches and was not always quite sure what word came next. Still his mere presence is always irresistible.
As _Lord Glandeville_, Mr. VANE TEMPEST, most admirable of buffoons, must have longed to be allowed to make us laugh, but solemnity was his order of the day and he carried it out like a hero. As for Mr. WENMAN, who played the partner that introduced _Lord Glandeville_ to the rest of the "Lotus Publishing Company" (though how that refined nobleman ever made the acquaintance of such a rough diamond is another of the "things we'd like to know"), his face is a gift and he used its mobility to good purpose.