Page:John M. Synge - Masefield - Dublin 1915.djvu/36

 On one occasion (I think in 1906) we lunched together (at the Vienna Café.) He told me with huge delight about his adventures in the wilds. He had lodged in a cabin far from the common roads. There was no basin in his bed-room. He asked for one, so that he might wash. The people brought him a wooden box, worn smooth with much use. In the morning he was roused by his host with the cry, “Have you washed yourself yet? Herself is wanting the box to make up the bread in.”

I remember asking him what sensations an author had when his play was being performed for the first time. “I sit still in my box,” he said “and curse the actors.” He was in a very gay mood that afternoon, though his health was fast failing. He spoke with his usual merry malice about his throat. With the trouble in his throat he could not tell when he would be in England again. He was only in England once more. That was in late May or early June, 1907, when the Irish players gave a few performances at the Kingsway Theatre. I met him in the foyer of the theatre just before the first London performance of The Playboy of the Western World.