l to his sense of fun; and, if he is in a sentimental
vein, whatever love-making there may be in the piece has no subtlety to
exasperate him.

Despite these things, let us hope that the West End managers will be
hostile to the smoking; for, after all, far too much of our drama at
present is intended to please the comfortable Philistine and his
appropriate womenfolk; and the people keenly interested in drama as a
branch of art are prepared even to sacrifice a pipe or a cigar in the
pursuit of their peculiar and hardly popular pleasure. Moreover, it is
likely the theatres would exhibit the snobbishness of the fashionable
halls and restaurants and taboo the pipe which every wise man prefers to
the cigar or cigarette for serious smoking.

Conduct of the Audience

When Mr Joseph Holbrooke was conducting the overture to _Pierrot and
Pierrette_ at His Majesty's Theatre he interrupted the orchestra in
order to request some members of the audience to stop talking. These
speakers were people in the stalls, and the composer-conductor could
hear that their conversation was about shopping--not Chopin, which,
alas! is sometimes pronounced as if the name rhymed with "popping."

No one can feel surprised that a composer finds it impossible to do his
work adequately as conductor when there is audible conversation among
members of the audience. Mr Holbrooke drew attention to what happens
very often in our playhouses: people come apparently entertaining the
idea that if they have paid for their seats they owe no duty towards
their neighbours or the author, composer or players. This idea,
unfortunately, is not confined to those who have paid for their seats,
since some of the dramatic critics, and also several of the ordinary
"deadheads," set a bad example.

The most noisome offenders are those who come late on purpose, because
they are anxious to draw public attention to their existence. They, of
course, are snobs of the worst water, whatever their social status or
the cost of their clothes, furs and jewellery; you see them bustling in
a quarter of an hour after the curtain has risen, shoving their way
along past people who rise reluctantly, and hear them chattering whilst
they take off cloaks and wraps before settling down in their seats. Very
little less detestable are those who, arriving late unwillingly, behave
otherwise in the same fashion. One of these brawlers defended herself by
alleging that there ought to be a gangway dow