In fact, so thoroughly was I baffled as to the real identity of the thief that, at the end of the first act, I regarded all the members of the cast, the leader of the orchestra, the hat-room boy, and the ordnance officer in the right-hand stage box, with equal suspicion.
It grieves me deeply to find out how frequently and how violently wrong I can be -- it doesn't seem reasonable, somehow.
....Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband -- invariably spoken of as "The Ideal Husband" by the same group of intellectuals who always refer to "The Doll's House."**....Somehow, no matter how well done an Oscar Wilde play may be, I always am far more absorbed in the audience than in the drama. There is something about them that never fails to enthrall me. They have a conscious exquisiteness, a deep appreciation of their own culture. They exude an atmosphere of The New Republic -- a sort of Crolier-than-thou air.(That one nearly made me choke on my coffee. You don't even really need to know exactly who Herbert Croly is ((I didn't)). But once you do, it's even funnier.)
*The glasses one. You know.
**I actually once saw a Final Jeopardy contestant lose because they wrote "The Doll's House" instead of "A Doll's House." True story.