"
M. Sarcey does not tell us what his interlocutor replied; but he might
have said, like the hero of _Le Reveillon_: "Are you sure there is no
mistake? Are you defending Sardou, or attacking him?"
For another example of ultra-complex preparation let me turn to a play
by Mr. Sydney Grundy, entitled _The Degenerates_. Mr. Grundy, though an
adept of the Scribe school, has done so much strong and original work
that I apologize for exhuming a play in which he almost burlesqued his
own method; but for that very reason it is difficult to find a more
convincing or more deterrent example of misdirected ingenuity. The
details of the plot need not be recited. It is sufficient to say that
the curtain has not been raised ten minutes before our attention has
been drawn to the fact that a certain Lady Saumarez has her monogram on
everything she wears, even to her gloves: whence we at once foresee that
she is destined to get into a compromising situation, to escape from it,
but to leave a glove behind her.
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