His mercantile delight was not of long endurance; for it
soon became plain that in this spirited tale there were
unmarketable elements; which is just the reason why you have it
here so briefly told. But his wonder has still kept growing; and I
think the reader's will also, if he consider it ripely. For now he
sees why I speak of the little people as of substantive inventors
and performers. To the end they had kept their secret. I will go
bail for the dreamer (having excellent grounds for valuing his
candour) that he had no guess whatever at the motive of the woman -
the hinge of the whole well-invented plot - until the instant of
that highly dramatic declaration. It was not his tale; it was the
little people's! And observe: not only was the secret kept, the
story was told with really guileful craftsmanship. The conduct of
both actors is (in the cant phrase) psychologically correct, and
the emotion aptly graduated up to the surprising climax. I am
awake now, and I know this trade; and yet I cannot better it. I am
awake, and I live by this business; and yet I could not outdo -
could not perhaps equal - that crafty artifice (as of some old,
experienced carpenter of plays, some Dennery or Sardou) by which
the same situation is twice presented and the two actors twice
brought face to face over the evidence, only once it is in her
hand, once in his - and these in their due order, the least
dramatic first.
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