—Also Bland

—It has become customary for the producer of Extrav. to write a polite little note. In A Few WellChosen Phrases, to "Salient," thanking everybody very prettily for the work they did to make the show the success it was, etc., etc.

Being at the moment in an iconoclastic mood, however, even though I did it last time, I don't want to do it no in fact, to do it now would be rather redundant, as Mr. Barr did it in the last issue of "Salient," and did it very well. In fact, if Mr. Barr's name had been incorporated in his own Honours List, I would merely have had to murmur a sincere and thankful "ditto," and everything would have been O.K.

However, there is one important individual—shadowy, perhaps, but I can assure you full of substance—that hasn't been properly appreciated. That is Mr. W. B. Bland, the coauthor of "Peter." He isn't a student, and he lives in Hamilton, and by an unfortunate error his name appeared only in an insignificant footnote in "Cappicade," and the "Dominion" critic forgot he existed. He is perhaps the only Forgotten Man of Extrav. Yet without Mr. Bland, "Peter" would never have got very much further than peering into his looking glass and wondering what the hell was going to happen next. Bland and I collaborated on the whole show, and a number of complete scenes—the Caucus Racecourse Scene, the Duchess's Kitchen Scene, and the HumptyDumpty Scene for instance—were produced almost entirely by Bland. I sent Bland a wire one day: "Please send Duchess's Kitchen scene urgently." It arrived two days later. That's the way it was.

So please remember this, people. All this isn't just hooey. I'm not trying to be modest—as you know, I am invariably immodest. The show was Meek, but it was also Bland.—I am, etc.,