brooke!_ So like him!"

This Act would have ended with the triumph of ready-wit over
disappointed malignity. _Jessie Keber_ would have run in and embraced
her hero, the Bill would have been carried (_Cheers heard without_),
and all would have ended happily and pleasantly without any necessity
having arisen for another Act, either of Parliament or of the piece.

"Yes," says this dramatist, "I admit the soft impeachment. I plead
guilty, with extenuating circumstances. _The play's the thing_; and if
the facts don't suit my play, so much the worse for the facts. Success
has been achieved, and what more can any living author want? Credit
and cash. _Voila tout!_ 'Credit' for my own original invention in
hitting upon the Parliamentary accessories to my picture; and 'cash,'
which will be paid as long as the public take an interest _in_ the
play, and just so long shall I take my interest _out_ of the public
money."

To sum up in the words of the old-fashioned tag, "If our friends in
front are pleased, then Manager and Author are satisfied." But, if
objection be still taken to the unreality of the Parliamentary setting
of the picture, then "please remember," apologises 'ENRY HAUTHOR,
"that '_it's only my play_.'"

* * * * *

A Liberator Lay.

Three little roguey-boys said to Conscience--"Pooh!"
Croydon made one its Mayor, and then there were two.

Two little roguey-boys thought that Fraud was fun;
A Judge thought otherwise, and then there was one.

One little roguey-boy took the Chiltern Hun-
dreds upon his road to Spain, and then there was none!

* * * * *

WALKING ROUND HIS SUBJECT.--In TAY PAY'S interesting review of _The
Life of Lord Aberdeen_, a Book of the Week in the _Sun_, there is a
delightful chord which shows that "the harp that once thro' Tara's
halls" still upon occasion twangs. "It is pleasant," says TAY PAY,
writing of Mr. GLADSTONE, "to be able to project ourselves backward to
the time, when the statesman we know as full of years and the idol of
millions, was the bashful, self-distrustful youth." Now, if next week
our young friend, whose sympathy with bashful, self-distrustful youth,
is instinctive, will manage to withdraw himself forward, he may be
said to have thoroughly reconnoitered his subject, an excellent thing
in a reviewer.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE VILLAGE BEAUTY AND THE RIVAL SWA