A. A. Milne and Owen Seaman

“ But the rubber-man in the play was never a hero. There in his Gold Coast shanty we see his lover's young brother dying of fever under his eyes. Yet from the moment when he himself gets a touch of the same complaint he takes to brandy, and practically loses all further interest—at any rate of a coherent kind—in the fate of his protégé. And at the end—though he seems to take a good deal of personal pride in the prospect—the only heroism that lies before him is the living-down of a sordid scandal in the divorce-court. ”

“ Indays of great national tension the public needs some coaxing to be got into the theatre at all. Our managers should either, at the risk of appearing callous, offer us a pure distraction from the strain of things or else provide something in harmony with the emotions of the time. ”

“ Victoria's theory was that all marriages ought to be preceded by a trial trip, but it was her sister Gail who had the pluck to put this theory into practice. She insisted on her young man, Peter, eloping with her on the night before their wedding. Peter, a simple gentleman with a mouth permanently open, was reluctantly persuaded. Whereupon Christopher, the best man, engaged to Victoria, insisted upon Victoria also living up to her theory and eloping without clerical assistance—which she did almost as unwillingly as Peter. ”