vely the
shock to his trade, and took a manly but quite ineffectual part in
household duties for which he had no calling. His lachrymose wife (Miss
MARY RORKE) was a sound example of the worst possible mother of
soldiers. _John_ we know, and Mr. OWEN NARES knew him too, and very
thoroughly. _John's_ wife (I can't think how she came to marry him) had
the makings of an Amazon and would gladly have spared her husband for
KITCHENER'S Army at the earliest moment. Her part was played very
sincerely and charmingly by Miss BARBARA EVEREST. _John's_ eldest sister
regretted the war because she had some nice friends in Germany, but she
caught the spirit of menial service from her sisters, of whom the
younger was a stage-flapper of the loudest. Finally the second son (Mr.
JACK HOBBS) was a nut who began with his heart in his socks but shifted
it later into the enemy's trench.

Perhaps the best performance of all--though it had little to do with the
war and nothing to do with child-birth--was that of Miss HANNAH JONES as
_Mrs. Pinhouse_, a perfect peach of a cook. There were also two
characters played off. One was a maid-servant who declined to come to
family prayers on the ground of other distractions. I admired her
courage. The other was _Michael_, the precious infant whose entry into
the world had occupied so much of our evening. Everybody on the stage
had to have a look at him. I felt no such desire. He bored me.

For a play that made pretence to a serious purpose there was far too
much time thrown away on mere trivialities. At first the exigencies of
the stage demanded compression. The news of the ultimatum to Germany,
the mobilisation, the rush to enlist, the attack on Germany's commerce,
were all stuffed into the space of a few minutes. But the whole of the
Third Act (laid in the kitchen) was wantonly wasted over the thinnest of
domestic humour.

There is a light side, thank Heaven, even to war; but Mr. THURSTON had a
great chance of doing serious good and he has only half used it. I am
certain (though he may call me a prig for saying it) that if he had set
himself to serve his country's cause through the great influence which
the theatre commands, he could have done better work than this; and he
ought to have done it.

O. S.

* * * * *

The Ambassadors' Theatre is producing a triple bill which includes a
"miniature revue" entitled _Odds and Ends_. The cost of the production
may be gathe