dmitting the superiority of Venus's "uppers" she
takes heart of grace, knowing from history how important in princely
eyes is her own particular endowment. She is always asking odd
questions, such as "why doctors ask you to say ninety-nine" and tailors
measuring gentlemen's legs call out "42-6; 38-7." She also has a queer
_penchant_ for stealing boards, betrays some connection with a firm,
Celeste et Cie. of Bond Street, and knows some German words. Which
concatenation of facts justifies the old bachelor in consulting a
friendly policeman (Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER). Bond Street turns out to be
a mean street, Celeste et Cie the name under which _Cinderella_ trades,
dealing in medical treatment, shaves, friendly counsel or dressmaking
all at a penny fee. Also she keeps in a Wendyish sort of way a _creche_
for orphan babes in boxes evidently made of the borrowed boards.

Our policeman, coming to work up his case, loses his heart. But
_Cinderella's_ mind is preoccupied with her ball. Ill from overwork and
underfeeding, she wanders into the street, falls faint--and dreams her
ball. Whereupon our authentic magician, coming to his own, lifts a
curtain of her queer little mind and gives us an all too short glimpse
of the state function, with an _h_-dropping, strap-hanging King and
Queen out of a pack of cards; their disdainful Prince, who is none
other, of course, than our policeman done into a bewigged _Monsieur
Beaucaire_; a moody and peremptory Peer, _Lord Times_; the Censor
(black-visored, with an axe); a grotesquely informal Lord Mayor; a bevy
of preposterous revue beauties with their caps set at the Prince,
against an all-gold background with the orphans babbling in a royal box
above the throne. Of course you have the heroine's belated entry, her
triumph and her abrupt flight, and the voice of the distraught Prince
crying after her, which is of course the voice of her own policeman, who
finds her and takes her to hospital. Then convalescence in a cottage
(alleged, really a palace) by the sea and the final declaration of
"romantical" policeman's love.

Sir JAMES banked heavily on Miss HILDA TREVELYAN as his _Cinderella_.
The English tradition of manufacturing parts to fit your players,
instead of training players to create your parts, was never more
shrewdly followed. She was most adorable in the exquisite business of
arranging the offer of her policeman's hand. Mr. DU MAURIER'S bobby was
as delightfully honest, plain-witted