Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/591
spirit of the play. There are only seven characters, and six of them are at one time or another engaged in pronounced flirtations with somebody else's spouse. I wonder if Williams, the Ponsonbys' solemn-faced butler (Mr. Edward Duggie), was able to keep track of the amorous permutations and combinations in which his master and mistress were involved in the course of three Acts. My own recollections of the plot are somewhat hazy―perhaps because I laughed so much―but I remember that Jim Ponsonby, in order to find time to make love to Mrs. Chesterton, accused his wife of flirting with Dick Trevor; and that Mrs. Jim, though quite innocent of any such intention, was gradually converted to a belief that she was really in love with Dick. The principal agent in this conversion was her disreputable papa, Horatio Billington, who assured her that "the Billingtons are all like that," and proceeded to illustrate the family failing by inviting Mrs. Chesterton to a tête-à-téte supper. On his advice, too, Jim, in order to arouse his wife's jealousy and so to recover her affections, makes violent love to Mrs. Trevor. That brings Dick to his bearings, and eventually leads to a restoration of the status quo all round.
Played by an inferior company I can imagine this kaleidoscopic study in conjugal frailty being absurd and unpleasant. Handled as it is by the accomplished performers at the Comedy Theatre it is wholly unobjectionable, and goes with unchecked brightness and zest. As the husband-lovers―the one a mixture of priggishness and excitability, the other by turns forward and lethargic―Mr. Kenneth Douglas and Mr. Sam Southern are well suited; while Mr. Fred Kerr plays the elderly roué with easy certainty. Miss Lydia Bilbrooke looks very handsome as the fascinating Mrs. Chesterton. The chief burden of the piece falls on the plump shoulders of Miss Marion Lorne, who sustains it admirably as Mrs. Ponsonby. A slight American accent gave additional point to her lines, while her varied facial expression would make her fortune as a film-actress.
L.
The 500th performance of that delightful play, Potash and Perlmutter, at the Queen's Theatre on the 24th, will be a matinée, of which the entire receipts are to be devoted to the funds of the Blinded Soldiers' and Sailors' Hostel, St. Dunstan's, Regent's Park.
"The Hand that Rocks the Cradle."
"In Bangalore one 6 H. P. A. C. Sociable Cycle Car, in good order till lately driven by a lady."―The Madras Mail.
"I don't 'old with this 'ere vaccination, Mrs. Green. What's vaccination done for my little Tommy? Since I 'ad 'im done 'e's 'ad whooping-cough, chicken-pox, measles―in fact, everythink but small-pox!"
THE KHAKI WEDDING
At wedding routs, when peace was rifer;
The bridegroom played a thankless part,
He seemed the merest cipher;
But khaki's now the only cry
Where once the lady filled the eye.
No costly veil, no sheath of lilies,
No orange blossoms, less and less
Of silk and satin "frillies";
She dresses on a modest plan
To leave him every chance she can.
Best fits a sacrificial altar;
Her man to-morrow joins the fray,
And yet she does not falter;
Simple her gown, but still we see
The bride in all her bravery.
"Situation Mousekeeper or good Plain Cook, age 48; good reference; now disengaged."
Portsmouth Evening News.
Nothing doing. So few people want a menial who keeps mice.
"Mr. Milton Rosmer... has also had hopes of reviving 'She Stoops to Conquer,' but it is as difficult to play Sheridan in a theatre as it is to play Mozart in an opera house, such very special art being required."
Pall Mall Gazette.
But why turn down Goldsmith?
"Mohamed Khalil, who is incarcerated in the prison of the Native Court of Appeal, is reported to be viewing things in a spirit of stoic bravado. He asked for a barber yesterday morning while he has sent out to purchase bootlaces and a collar stud."
The Sudan Herald.
Ah, but wait until the collar-stud rolls under the chest-of-drawers. That will take the bravado out of him.