No duty now urged me to write. My job was
soldiering, and my spare time was my own affair. Other subalterns
played bridge and golf; that was one way of amusing oneself.
Another way was--why not?--to write plays.
So we began with Wurzel-Flummery. I say "we," because another is
mixed up in this business even more seriously than the Kaiser. She
wrote; I dictated. And if a particularly fine evening drew us out
for a walk along the byways--where there was no saluting, and one
could smoke a pipe without shocking the Duke of Cambridge--then it
was to discuss the last scene and to wonder what would happen in
the next. We did not estimate the money or publicity which might
come from this new venture; there has never been any serious
thought of making money by my bridge-playing, nor desire for
publicity when I am trying to play golf. But secretly, of course,
we hoped. It was that which made it so much more exciting than any
other game.
Our hopes were realized to the following extent:
Wurzel-Flummery was produced by Mr. Dion Boucicault at the New
Theatre in April, 1917. It was originally written in three acts, in
which form it was shown to one or two managers. At the beginning of
1917 I was offered the chance of production in a triple bill if I
cut it down into a two-act play. To cut even a line is painful, but
to cut thirty pages of one's first comedy, slaughtering whole
characters on the way, has at least a certain morbid fascination.
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