Mr. Alloyd turned on him with a sardonic and half-benevolent gleam.
"And what are your ideas about theatres?"
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I should like to meet an architect who had
thoroughly got it into his head that when people pay for seats to see
a play they want to be able to _see_ it, and not just get a look at it
now and then over other people's heads and round corners of boxes and
things. In most theatres that I've been in the architects seemed to
think that iron pillars and wooden heads are transparent. Either
that, or the architects were rascals! Same with hearing! The pit costs
half-a-crown, and you don't pay half-a-crown to hear glasses rattled
in a bar or motor-omnibuses rushing down the street. I was never yet
in a London theatre where the architect had really understood that
what the people in the pit wanted to hear was the play and nothing but
the play."
"You're rather hard on us," said Mr. Alloyd.
"Not so hard as you are on _us_!" said Edward Henry. "And then
draughts! I suppose you think a draught on the back of the neck is
good for us!... But of course you'll say all this has nothing to do
with architecture!"
"Oh, no, I shan't! Oh, no, I shan't!" exclaimed Mr. Alloyd. "I quite
agree with you!"
"You _do_?"
"Certainly. You seem to be interested in theatres?"
"I am a bit."
"You come from the north?"
"No, I don't," said Edward Henry.
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