The Property Man
THE property man lives in the property room, which is a place difficult to describe, for everything you can possibly think of is kept inside it: swords, a stuffed canary, bowls, drums, goblets, dishes, bags, pipes, antique vases, folios, baskets, trunks, inkpots, samovars, diadems, rings, cards, dice, trumpets, Red Indian quivers, boxes, pistols, civil and military utensils of all the ages, instruments of all countries, everything that ever was and now is.
It is the property man’s duty to procure whatever the dramatist needs: a motor-car, a horse, an aquarium, a white elephant, a dead cat, a live peacock, a decimal weight, Aladdin’s ring, dirty washing, a musical box, a waterfall, an infernal machine, a singing spinning-wheel: in a word, every possible
151
