[Illustration: Opening the Case.]
[Illustration: Briscoe, having lost one suit, gains another.]
Mr. Lestocq's amusing farce, _The Sportsman_, now being played at the
Comedy Theatre, must inevitably recall to the experienced play-goer the
plot and situations of _The Serious Family_ and _The Colonel_, _Truth_,
_The Candidate_, _Artful Cards_, and it may be some others of the same
extensive dramatic family. In this piece the husband, under pretence of
joining a shooting-party, is accustomed to absent himself from home, in
order to indulge his propensity for gambling, and he invariably brings
home to his wife the hares and rabbits he has shot. This is "his little
game." Just so did the husband in _The Serious Family_, when _Aminadab
Sleek_ remarks that he has seen something very like them at a
neighbouring poulterer's. In the Second Act the police make a raid on the
gambling Club, and the husband escapes in any coat he can lay hold of,
following the example of the unfortunate hero of _Artful Cards_, only
that the situation at the end of _that_ Second Act was far stronger in
that play than it is in _The Sportsman_. In _Artful Cards_ the
unfortunate hero escaped, carrying a trombone, which turned up in
evidence against him when he was inventing plausible explanations to his
wife. In fact, _The Sportsman_ is concocted out of excellent old material
cleverly worked up, with only one new point in it, to which, as it has
escaped the eye of the English adapter, it would be useless to draw his
attention; yet, had he seen it, he might therefrom have developed a
really original sequence of perplexing situations. The dialogue is not
particularly brilliant; jerky, not crisp. But such is the "go" of the
principals, and especially of Mr. HAWTREY, who is the life and soul of
the farce, that the laughter is hearty and continuous.
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