A New Epilogue for the Last Performance of Mr. Shaw’s Play.

Though Mr. Bernard Shaw has set the fashion in prologues for modern plays, his admirers were not altogether satisfied with the epilogue to The Doctor’s Dilemma. It is far too short; and leaves us in the dark as to whom ‘Jennifer Dubedat’ married. Epilogues, as students of English drama remember, were often composed by other authors. The following experiment ought to have come from the hand of Mr. St. John Hankin, that master of Dramatic Sequels, but his work on the ‘Cassilis Engagement’ deprived Mr. Shaw of the only possible collaborator.

[Scene: A Bury Street Picture Gallery—Messrs. Gersaint & Co. The clock strikes ten, and Sir Colenso Ridgeon is seen going out rather crestfallen by centre door. Mr. Gersaint, the manager, is nailing up a notice (‘All works of art, for art’s sake or sale; prices on application. Catalogue 1s.). Mr. Jack Stepney, the secretary, is receiving the private view cards from the visitors who are trooping in; some sneak catalogues as they enter, and on being asked for payment protest and produce visiting cards and press vouchers instead of shillings. Artists, Royal Academicians, Mr. Edmund Gosse, and other members of the House of Lords discovered; men of letters, art critics, connoisseurs, journalists, collectors, dealers, private viewers, impostors, dramatic critics, poets, pickpockets, politicians crowd the stage. From time to time Jack Stepney places a red star on the picture frames in the course of the action.]

J. Stepney. I thought all the pictures had been bought by Dr. Schutzmacher.

Gersaint. So they were, my boy, but he has wired saying they are all to be put up for sale at double the price; capital business, you see we shall get two commissions.

J. Stepney. Yes, sir. It is fortunate Mrs. Dubedat did not have the prices marked in the Catalogue.

Gersaint. You mean Mrs. Schutzmacher. (Drives in last nail).

J. Stepney. Yes, sir.

Enter a striking-looking-man, not unlike a Holbein drawing, at a distance: but on nearer inspection, as he comes within range of the footlights, he is more like an Isaac Oliver or Nicholas Lucidel. He examines the notice and sniffs.

s.l.m.n.u.h.d. Which are the works of Art?

Edmund Gosse. Can you tell me who that is? He is one of the few people I don’t know by sight. A celebrity of course; and do point out any obscurities. Every one is so distinguished. It is rather confusing.

Gersaint. That is the Holland Park Wonder, so-called because he lives at the top of a tower in Holland Park—the greatest Art Connoisseur in England. Mr. Charles Ricketts, the greatest—

Edmund Gosse. Thank you; thank you.

Mr. Frederick Wedmore (interrupting). Can you tell me whether the frames are included in the prices of the pictures?

J. Stepney. No, sir. They are stock frames, the property of the Gallery, and are only lent for the occasion.

Mr. Frederick Wedmore. Then I fear I cannot buy; a naked picture without a frame is useless to me.

Charles Ricketts. Do you think I could buy a frame without a picture?

Joseph Pennell. I say Ricketts, it seems a beastly shame we didn’t get this show for the International. It would have been good ‘ad.’ What’s the use of Backers? I see they’re selling well.

Charles Ricketts. But, my dear Pennell, you’re doing the Life, aren’t you?—the real Dubedat?

Joseph Pennell. Oh, yes, but the family have injuncted Heinemann from publishing the letters: Mr. Justice Kekewich will probably change his opinion when the weather gets warmer. It is only an interim injunction.

Charles Ricketts. A sort of Clapham Injunction.

Sir William Richmond, K.C.B., R.A. If I had known what a stupendous genius Dubedat was, I should have given him part of the ‘New Bailey’ to decorate.

D. S. MacColl. Let us be thankful he’s as dead as Bill Bailey.

Sir Charles Holroyd (smoothing things over). I think we ought to have an example for the Tate. (MacColl winces.) The Chantrey Bequest—(MacColl winces again)—might do something; and I must write to Lord Balcarres. The National Arts Collections Fund may have something over from the subscriptions to the Rokeby Velasquez; but I want to see what Colvin is going to choose for the British Museum.

Sidney Colvin. I think we might have this drawing; it stands on its legs. A most interesting fellow Dubedat. He reminds me of Con—

George Moore. Not Stevenson, though he had no talent whatever. My dear Mr. Colvin, have you ever read ‘Vailima Letters’? I have read parts of them.

Sidney Colvin (coldly). Ah, really! Did you suffer very much?

Sir Hugh P. Lane. Do you think, Mr. Gersaint, the artist’s widow would give me one of the pictures for the Dublin Gallery? We have no money at all. I have no money, but all the artists are giving pictures: Sargent, Shannon, Lavery, Frank Dicksee; and Rodin is giving a plaster cast.

Gersaint. How charming and insinuating you are, Sir Hugh. We can make special reductions for the Dublin Gallery, but you can hardly expect charitable bequests from picture dealers.

Sir Hugh P. Lane. Oh! but Dowdeswell, Agnew, Sulley, Wertheimer, P. and D. Colnaghi, and Humphry Ward are all giving me pictures. Now, look here, I’ll buy these five drawings, and you can give me these two. I’ll give you a Gainsborough drawing in exchange for them. It has a very good history. First it belonged to Ricketts, then to Rothenstein, then Wilson Steer, and then to the Carfax Gallery, and . . . then it came into my possession, and all that in three months. (Bargain concluded.)

Mr. Pffungst (aside). But is there any evidence that it belonged to Gainsborough?

Sir Hugh P. Lane (turning to a titled lady). Oh, do come to tea next Saturday. I want to show you my new Titian which I have just bought for 2100l.

Titled Lady. Sir Hugh, can you tell me who Mrs. Dubedat is now?

Sir Hugh P. Lane. Oh, yes. She married Dr. Schutzmacher, the specialist on bigamy only this morning.

Titled Lady. How interesting. I should like to meet her. Dresses divinely, I’m told.

Sir Hugh P. Lane. She’s coming to tea next Saturday; such good tea, too!

Titled Lady. That will be delightful.

St. John hankin (loftily). Can you tell me whether this charmian artist is pronounced DubÉdat or DubÈdat?

W. P. Ker (in deep Scotch). Non Dubitat. (He does not speak again.)

P. G. Konody. Oh, Mr. Phillips, do tell me exactly what you think of this artist!

Claude Phillips. I think he wanted a good smacking.

P. G. Konody. Ah, yes, his art has a smack about it. (Aside.) Good heading for the Daily Mail, ‘Art with a smack.’ (Writes in catalogue.)

Will Rothenstein. When I see pictures of this kind, my dear Gersaint, they seem to me to explain your existence. An artist without a conscience . . . (Sees Roger Fry.) My dear Fry, what are you doing here? Buying for New York? (Laughs meaningly.)

Roger Fry. Oh, no; but I hear Gersaint has a very fine picture by the MaÎtresse of the Moulin Rouge. Weale says it is School of Gheel (pronounced Kail).

Will Rothenstein. Kail Yard I should think; do look at these things.

Roger Fry (vaguely). Who are they by? Oh, yes, Dubedat, of course.

[Fry and Rothenstein regard picture with disdain; it withers under their glance. Stage illusion by Maskelyne and Theodore Cook. Stepney places a red star on it.

Gersaint. Well, Mr. Bowyer Nichols, I hope we shall have a good long notice in the Westminster Gazette. Now if there is any drawing . . .

Bowyer Nichols (very stiffly). No, there isn’t. I don’t think the Exhibition sufficiently important; everything seems to me cribbed: most of the pictures look like reproductions of John, Orpen or Neville Lytton.

Gersaint. Ah, no doubt, influenced by Neville Lytton. That portrait of Mr. Cutler Walpole has a Neville Lytton feeling. Neville Lytton in his earlier manner.

Enter Sir Patrick Cullen, Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonnington and Sir Colenso Ridgeon.

Sir C. Ridgeon. Ah, Sir Patrick, I have just heard that the pictures are for sale; now I am going to plunge a little. I think they will rise in value; and by the way I want to ask your opinion as a scientific man. If I treat four artists with virus obscÆnum for three weeks, what will be the condition of the remaining artists in the fourth week?

Sir P. Cullen. Colenso, Colenso, you ought to have been a senior wrangler and then abolished.

Sir C. Ridgeon. What a cynic you are. All the same I’ve had great successes, though Dubedat was one of our failures. A rather anÆmic member of the New English Art Club come to me for treatment, and in less than a year he was an Associate of the Royal Academy; what do you say to that?

Sir P. Cullen. Out of Phagocyte, out of mind.

Sir R. B. B. My dear Sir Patrick, how prejudiced you are. Take MacColl’s case: a typical instance of morbus ferox ars nova anglicana: under dear Colenso he became an official at the Tate.

Sir C. Ridgeon. Then there’s Sir Charles Holroyd, you remember his high tempera?

Sir P. Cullen. There has been a relapse I hear from the catalogue.

Sir R. B. B. How grossly unfair; that is a false bulletin issued by the former nurse: ‘the evil that men do lives after them.’

Sir P. Cullen. My dear B. B., this is not Dubedat’s funeral. Do you think Bernard Shaw will like the new epilogue?

Bernard Shaw. He will; I’m shaw.

L. C. C. Inspector. Excuse me, is Mr. Vedrenne here? Ah, yes! There is Mr. Vedrenne. Will you kindly answer some of my questions? Is that door on the left a real door? In case of fire I cannot allow property doors; the actors might be seized with stage fright, and they must have, as Sir B. B. would say, ‘their exits and their entrances.’

Vedrenne. Everything at the Court Theatre, my dear sir, is real. Ask Mr. Franks, he will tell you the door is not even a jar. The art, the acting, the plays, even the audience is real, except a few dramatic critics I cannot exclude. I admit the audience looks improbable at matinÉes; out of Court is a truth in art of which we are only dimly beginning to understand the significance. [Noise outside.

Enter Jennifer, dressed in deep mourning.

Jennifer (with a bright smile). Mr. Vedrenne, I have just had a telegram saying that my husband, Leo, was killed in his motor after leaving me at the Synagogue. His last words were: ‘Jennifer, promise me that you will wear mourning if I die, merely to mark the difference between Dubedat and myself.’ This afternoon I am going to marry Blenkinsop. How are the sales going?

Vedrenne. Well, I think we might have the catechism or the churching of heroines. What is your name?

Jennifer. Jennifer.

Vedrenne. Where did you get that name?

Jennifer. From Bernard Shaw in my baptism.

Mr. Redford (Licenser of Plays). Mr. Shaw, I really must point out that this passage comes from the Anglican Prayer-book. Are you aware of that? I have a suggestion of my own for ending the play.

Bernard Shaw. Oh, shut up! Let us have my ten commandments.

Granville Barker. My dear Shaw, you sent them to Wells for revision and he lost them in the Tube. I can remember the first one, ‘Maude spake these words and said: “Thou shalt have none other Shaws but me.”’

Bernard Shaw. How careless of Wells. I remember the second: ‘Do not indulge in craven imitation.’

W. L. Courtney. The third commandment runs: ‘Thou shalt not covet George Alexander.’

Granville Barker. One of them runs: ‘Do not commit yourself to Beerbohm Tree, though his is His Majesty’s . . . ’ But we shall never get them right. We must offer a reward for their recovery. I vote that Walkley now says the credo. That, I think, expresses every one’s sentiment.

A. B. Walkley (reluctantly). I believe in Bernard Shaw, in Granville Barker, and (heartily) in The Times.

William Archer. Plaudite, missa est.

(1907.)

Curtain.