CHAPTER IX
Which mentions some trivialities about Gwendolyn de Vere, née Bridget O'Callahan, then swings straight back to a section of Calcutta as famous for its evil odors as its evil morals.
Even Tollemache Wade, though he regarded any show in which Miss Gwendolyn de Vere, née Bridget O'Callahan, had a part through the roseate spectacles of his personal affection for her, could not deny that “A Pair of Gray Eyes” was not a new musical play.
For, in a way, it was a historic play, a gently reminiscent play that had been cut out, pasted, remodeled, and recast; had been restored to its original form, renamed, and once again rewritten; finally had been rehashed with the help of a collaborator who was an impecunious cousin of the producing manager, and who took seventy-five per cent of the royalties and put it through all the regular paces of condensement and enlargement which make playwriting such a delightful pastime for a nervous writer blessed with an artistic temperament, a conscience, and a lack of humor.
The music contained stray bits from Gilbert and Sullivan's operas and a good many Wagnerian motifs made over and syncopated, while the dialogue was richly spiced with lines from “Charlie's Aunt.” There was, of course, an opening chorus showing a London society matron whose daughters—seventeen of them,
