JULIA.  Oh, look, Laura!  Martha’s tea-pot has arrived.

LAURA.  She told a lie, then.

JULIA.  No, it was the truth.  She wished for it.  The sea has given up its dead.

LAURA.  Then now I have got it at last!

(But, as she goes to seize the disputed possession, Martha rises through the floor, grabs the tea-pot, and descends to the nether regions once more.)

LAURA (glaring at her sister with haggard eye).  Julia, where are we?

JULIA.  I don’t know what you mean, Laura. (She reaches out a polite hand) The key?

(Mrs. James delivers up the key as one glad to be rid of it.)

LAURA.  What is this place we’ve come to?

JULIA (persuasively). Our home.

LAURA.  I think we are in Hell!

JULIA (going to the door, which she unlocks with soft triumph). We are all where we wish to be, Laura. (A gong sounds.) That’s supper. (The gong continues its metallic bumbling)

(Julia departs, leaving Mrs. James in undisputed possession of the situation she has made for herself.)

CURTAIN

Part Three

Dethronements

IMAGINARY PORTRAITS OF POLITICAL CHARACTERS,
DONE IN DIALOGUE

Preface

The written dialogue, as interpretative of character, is but a form of portraiture, no more personally identified with its subject than drawing or painting; nor can it claim to have more verisimilitude until it finds embodiment on the stage.  Why then, in this country at any rate, is its application to living persons only considered legitimate when associated with caricature?  So sponsored, in the pages of Punch and the composition of Mr. Max Beerbohm, it has become an accepted convention too habitual for remark.  Yet caricature and verbal parody may be as critical both of personality and character as dialogue more seriously designed, and may have as important an influence not merely upon a public opinion, but upon its moral judgment as well.

The defection of Punch was felt by Gladstone to be a serious set-back to the fortunes of his Home Rule policy; and Tenniel’s cartoon of “the Grand old Janus,” saying “Quite right!” to the police who were bludgeoning an English mob, and “Quite wrong!” to the police who were bludgeoning an Irish one, was a personal jibe which hit him hard.