at Lady Windermere’s reception in the second act.  That is the frame of mind which the author should try to beget in his audience; and Oscar Wilde, then almost a novice, had, in this one little passage between Lady Windermere and the butler, shown himself a master of the art of dramatic story-telling.  The dramatist has higher functions than mere story-telling; but this is fundamental, and the true artist is the last to despise it.[1]

For another example of a first act brought to what one may call a judiciously tantalizing conclusion, I turn to Mr. R.C.  Carton’s comedy Wheels within Wheels. Lord Eric Chantrell has just returned from abroad after many years’ absence.  He drives straight to the bachelor flat of his old chum, Egerton Vartrey.  At the flat he finds only his friend’s valet, Vartrey himself has been summoned to Scotland that very evening, and the valet is on the point of following him.  He knows, however, that his master would wish his old friend to make himself at home in the flat; so he presently goes off, leaving the newcomer installed for the night.  Lord Eric goes to the bedroom to change his clothes; and, the stage being thus left vacant, we hear a latch-key turning in the outer door.  A lady in evening dress enters, goes up to the bureau at the back of the stage, and calmly proceeds to break it open and ransack it.  While she is thus burglariously employed, Lord Eric enters, and cannot refrain from a slight expression of surprise.  The lady takes the situation with humorous calmness, they fall into conversation, and it is manifest that at every word Lord Eric is more and more fascinated by the fair house-breaker.  She learns who he is, and evidently knows all about him; but she is careful to give him no inkling of her own identity.  At last she takes her leave, and he expresses such an eager hope of being allowed to renew their acquaintance, that it amounts to a declaration of a peculiar interest in her.  Thereupon she addresses him to this effect:  “Has it occurred to you to wonder how I got into your friend’s rooms?  I will show you how”—­and, producing a latch-key, she holds it up, with all its questionable implications, before his eyes.  Then she lays it on the table, says:  “I leave you to draw your own conclusions” and departs.  A better opening for a light social comedy could scarcely be devised.  We have no difficulty in guessing that the lady, who is not quite young, and has clearly a strong sense of humour, is freakishly turning appearances against herself, by way of throwing a dash of cold water on Lord Eric’s sudden flame of devotion.  But we long for a clear explanation of the whole quaint little episode; and here, again, no reasonable offer would tempt us to leave the theatre before our curiosity is satisfied.  The remainder of the play, though amusing, is unfortunately not up to the level of the first act; else Wheels within Wheels would be a little classic of light comedy.