A council of war immediately held decided that the Pilgrim should act as negotiator, the Demon agreeing - believing that on Bronway seeing him the Hebrew might go right off from shock. The enemy within got word from Caddy, who was the range-finder for such occasions, that Bronway was the obtruder. He knocked once, he knocked twice, he knocked thrice. He reached his cottage through a broken sea of dead marines and sardine, salmon, and herring tins, which, having a large nose for general purposes, alarmed him much. Bronway, tired of waiting for the Bishop's relative to come to town, decided to run down to Manly to interview him. They opened accounts with the Manly shopkeepers to pay on the second Wednesday in the month, but forgot to specify the month. Broad-minded, they gave everybody 'a turn' at the village, and sent us some beautiful copy. He developed squabbles on every stage and around them all, and though long since gone to his rest, he doubtless still gives a turn to laugh again over his scarifying or satirical thrusts at Williamson, Garner and Musgrove, Fanny Liddiard, Maggie Moore, Nellie Stewart- and not forgetting the amateur Hamlet, gasfitter Defries, and the amateur Othello, Isaac Reginald Isaacs, of Woollahra, who lent money on more liberal terms than ever known before - but who never would play Shylock on the stage, whatever he might do off it. In some of the criticisms, for instance, he'd never describe Holloway, an early barnstormer, as anything else but 'Bill,' and Verdi, the pompous baritone, was only 'Bill Green' when he was writing opera.
At times he'd employ all his wits to invest a fourth-rate part with the importance rightly attachable to the principal -and then trouble before and behind the curtain would begin. Very often, out of sheer devilment, he'd write up a chorus girl's charms, and send a prima donna right off her head. He was the master theatrical critic at the time.
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