SCENE--_Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. Any time
before the production of "Cheer, Boys, Cheer."_
[Illustration:
INGREDIENTS
FOR
DRAMA]
_First W. W._ (_Sir Druriol nus_). When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, shine, or rain?
_Second W. W._ (_C. Raleigh_). When the hurly-burly's done,
When by play we've lost or won.
_Third W. W._ (_H. Hamilton_). 'Twill be settled by the run!
_First W. W._ Where the scenes?
_Second W. W._ (_happily_). From Polo go
_First W. W._ (_excitedly_). To Matabele!
_Third W. W._ (_grandly_). Rotten Row!
_First W. W._ To WORTH of Paris!
_Second W. W._ (_receiving a note from the Musical Director_). GLOVER calls!
_Third W. W._ (_having had a line from a Costumier_). What! BOSCH!
_All three_ (_solemnly dancing round the cauldron_).
Polo, gold mines, Rotten Row,
Costumes grand, comedian low,
Round about the country go!
The Weird Writers hand in hand
Posters stick throughout the land.
Us they'll write about, about!
Three to one, it will be fine!
Writers three we thus combine!
Piece! The curtain's up!
[_They vanish._
And the melodrama,--showing how a match was broken off at a Polo
gathering, and how many times in one evening Mr. HENRY NEVILLE
can take off his hat in a wonderful variety of courteous ways, and
how he gets taken off himself by a Matabelian shot; showing, too, how
funny Mr. GIDDENS and Mr. LIONEL RIGNOLD can be, and how admirably
Miss FANNY BROUGH behaves as an eccentric lady of fashion
in exceptionally trying circumstances; how good as a villain CHARLES
DALTON is; how strikingly DRURIOLANUS has managed stage effects,
and how admirably his auxiliaries have done their work,--the melodrama,
containing all this and very much more, achieves a distinct
success.
* * * * *
Poor Mrs. LANGTRY! "What all my pretty chicks at one fell swoop!" "The
pretty chicks" would be represented by "a pretty _cheque_." Lots more
where they came from, and their fair owner may yet sing about them
triumphantly to the tune of "_Lillie-bulero_," or any other that takes
her fancy if she objects to the original air as being out of date. Why
not a new version of "_Ti-a-ra Boom-de-ay_"?
* * *
"AN INTOLERABLE NUISANCE."--The _Pall Mall Gazette_ is to be felicitated
upon a praiseworthy but, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempt to
institute a campaign against the organ fiends haunting our streets. But
the letters which, under the heading "An Intolerable Nuisance," poured
in briskly at first, have finally "ceased and determined." We have been
told of a village, "in the Ausonian hills," peopled by retired
organ-grinders who, having amassed a fortune--resulting from bribes,
given by the despairing citizen, as an inducement to the torturer to
remove himself "to the next street"--repair thither to enjoy an _otium
cum dignitate_, untroubled by any qualm of conscience for the suffering
inflicted by them upon patient Britons. Will some _Novum Organon_ tell
us the whereabouts of this Utopia, and let us thither banish in
shiploads these "intolerable nuisances."
* * * * *