The Admirable Crichton

A moment before the curtain rises, the Hon. Ernest Woolley drives up to the door of LoamHouse in Mayfair. There is a happy smile on his pleasant, insignificant face, and this presumablymeans that he is thinking of himself. He is too busy over nothing, this man about town, to be alwaysthinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he almost never thinks of any other person. ProbablyErnest's great moment is when he wakes of a morning and realises that he really is Ernest, for wemust all wish to be that which is our ideal. We can conceive him springing out of bed light-heartedlyand waiting for his man to do the rest. He is dressed in excellent taste, with just the little bit morewhich shows that he is not without a sense of humour: the dandiacal are often saved by carrying asmile at the whole thing in their spats, let us say. Ernest left Cambridge the other day, a member ofThe Athenaeum (which he would be sorry to have you confound with a club in London of the samename). He is a bachelor, but not of arts, no mean epigrammatist (as you shall see), and a favourite ofthe ladies. He is almost a celebrity in restaurants, where he dines frequently, returning to sup; andduring this last year he has probably paid as much in them for the privilege of handing his hat to anattendant as the rent of a working-man's flat. He complains brightly that he is hard up, and that ifsomebody or other at Westminster does not look out the country will go to the dogs. He is no fool. He has the shrewdness to float with the current because it is a labour-saving process, but he hassufficient pluck to fight, if fight he must (a brief contest, for he would soon be toppled over). He hasa light nature, which would enable him to bob up cheerily in new conditions and return unaltered tothe old ones. His selfishness is his most endearing quality. If he has his way he will spend his life likea cat in pushing his betters out of the soft places, and until he is old he will be fondled in theprocess.