e a decent M.P. behaving in such embarrassing
circumstances. He suspected his wife with all the ardour which public
men on the stage always exhibit. His little turn of desperate tragedy
carried conviction--almost too much conviction, as you will find--but I
won't explain.

Miss JESSIE WINTER, as his wife, very adroitly contrived an ambiguous
effect of likely guilt but possible innocence. She more than fulfils the
promise of her last performance in this theatre, but she must (may I
tell her?) arrest the development of "the Fatal Caesura," that
exasperating histrionic device whereby every salient phrase is broken up
for no conceivable reason into two halves. In the secondary stages there
is but slender hope of a cure; in the tertiary there is none.

Miss DARRAGH was, as required, the vindictive widow to the life (this
kind of life, you understand), and Miss HILDA BAYLEY played very
charmingly the little wilful _fiancee_ who--but no, I must keep my
promise.

With much less evidence than the applause and generally keyed-up
attitude of the Savoy audience afforded me, I could risk a psychic
communication in the authentic manner of a Beverley seance. "All is
dark.... It is getting light.... I see a man.... He leans eagerly to a
telephone.... He thrusts something into envelopes. He goes on thrusting
things into envelopes. The telephone keeps ringing.... It is.... Can it
be? Yes, it _is_ a Box Office." An institution which at the Savoy should
be busy for many months to come.

T.

* * * * *

A MISNOMER.

"In memory of the name of the late Dr. F. C. Batchelor it is
proposed that the name of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital
(Dunedin) be altered to that of the Batchelor
Hospital."--_Southland Times_ (_N.Z._)

* * * * *

[Illustration] _Mother._ "Did you remember to pray for everybody, dear?"

_Daughter._ "Well, Mummy, I prayed for you, but Jack prayed for Daddy.
He's looking after him just now."]

* * * * *

MUSIC IN WAR TIME.

The Converted Collector.

(_An Order in Council prohibits the importation of all musical
instruments._)

In ancient, peaceful _ante-bellum_ days--
Now far remote as HANNIBAL'S or HANNO'S--
I had a weakness, possibly a craze,
For buying Hun pianos.

I let no patriotic sentiment
My honest inclination curb or fetter;
On foreign articles my cash I spent,
Because