MARY, WE WERE WAKENED BY LOUD KNOCKING, AND YOUR MASTER
WENT DOWN AND FOUND IT WAS A POLICEMAN, WHO TOLD HIM THE
PANTRY WINDOW WAS OPEN."

_Mary._ "OH, 'E DID, DID 'E? 'AD 'E RED 'AIR? I'LL LARN
'M TO GO 'AMMERIN' AT DECENT PEOPLE'S DOOR IN THE MIDDLE
OF THE NIGHT JUST BECAUSE I WOULDN'T GO TO THE PICTURES
WITH 'IM LAST FRIDAY. IMPERENCE!"]

* * * * *

From the directions on an omnibus ticket:--

"Passengers are requested not to stand on top of the Bus
back seats for smoking."

This is a thing we never do.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"MARY ROSE."

OF course nobody could possibly suspect Sir JAMES BARRIE of plagiarising
(save from himself), yet it will explain something of the atmosphere of
_Mary Rose_ if I say that it is a story with such a theme as that
admirable ghostmonger, the Provost of Eton, would whole-heartedly
approve--thrilling, sinister, inconclusive--with (shall I say?) just a
dash of Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in his other-worldly mood to bring it
well into the movement. Naturally the variations are sheer BARRIE and of
the most adroit.

[Illustration: THE BOY WHO WOULD GROW UP FASTER THAN HIS
MOTHER.

_Mary Rose_ . . . MISS FAY COMPTON.
_Harry_ . . . . MR. ROBERT LORAINE.]

_Mary Rose_ is in fact a girl who couldn't grow up, because whenever she
visited a little mystery island in the Outer Hebrides "they" who lived
in a "lovely, lovely, lovely" vague world beyond these voices would call
her vaguely (to Mr. NORMAN O'NEILL'S charming music), and she would as
vaguely return with no memory of what had passed and no change in her
physical condition. This didn't matter so much when, as a mere child,
she disappeared for thirty days; but when, mother of an incomparable
heir of two, she was rapt away in the middle of a picnic for twenty-five
years, and returned to find a husband, mother and father inexplicably
old and changed, and dreadfully silent about her babe--well, you see for
yourself how hopeless everything was. As if there were not enough real
tragedy in the world and it were necessary to invent!

I don't think it fair to tell you any more. You shouldn't suffer these
thrills at second-hand. But I can say that, in spite of making it a
point of professional honour to try to keep a warm spine and check the
unbidden tear from trickling down my nose (which makes you look such an
ass before