"The Gay Invalid"
SIR.—In brief: Mr. Daubeny, as impresario, supervised and controlled the choice of title, the expenditure and the casting of The Gay Invalid. I quarrelled violently with his decisions on all three points, and naturally held him responsible for having made them. As Mr. Daubeny pertinently says: " Anyone who puts a play on to the stage is a fair target for arrows."
I did not and would not gibe at A. E. Matthews, who is certainly "a wonderful veteran." I merely find it a little cynical to cast veterans, however wonderful, as men in the prime of life. If I saw Mr. Daubeny riding through Peking and pointed out to him that his rickshaw boy was seventy-five years old, I cannot believe he would really reply: " But he's a wonderful old fellow! Such stamina! Giddap! " I think he would probably climb down—not at all a bad exercise for a young impresario.
I have never met or had any dealings with Mr. Daubeny. The sugges- tion of " remote spleen " on my part is as unexpected as it is misguided.
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