roine.

If the stage heroine were well advised she would remain single. Her
husband means well. He is decidedly affectionate. But he is unfortunate
and inexperienced in worldly affairs. Things come right for him at the
end of the play, it is true; but we would not recommend the heroine
to place too much reliance upon the continuance of this happy state
of affairs. From what we have seen of her husband and his business
capabilities during the five acts preceding, we are inclined to doubt
the possibility of his being anything but unfortunate to the end of his
career.

True, he has at last got his "rights" (which he would never have lost
had he had a head instead of a sentimental bladder on his shoulders),
the Villain is handcuffed, and he and the heroine have settled down
comfortably next door to the comic man.

But this heavenly existence will never last. The stage hero was built
for trouble, and he will be in it again in another month, you bet.
They'll get up another mortgage for him on the "estates;" and he won't
know, bless you, whether he really did sign it or whether he didn't, and
out he will go.

And he'll slop his name about to documents without ever looking to see
what he's doing, and be let in for Lord knows what; and another wife
will turn up for him that he had married when a boy and forgotten all
about.

And the next corpse that comes to the village he'll get mixed up
with--sure to--and have it laid to his door, and there'll be all the old
business over again.

No, our advice to the stage heroine is to get rid of the hero as soon as
possible, marry the villain, and go and live abroad somewhere where the
comic man won't come fooling around.

She will be much happier.

THE COMIC MAN.

He follows the hero all over the world. This is rough on the hero.

What makes him so gone on the hero is that when they were boys together
the hero used to knock him down and kick him. The comic man remembers
this with a glow of pride when he is grown up, and it makes him love the
hero and determine to devote his life to him.

He is a man of humble station--the comic man. The village blacksmith or
a peddler. You never see a rich or aristocratic comic man on the stage.
You can have your choice on the stage; you can be funny and of lowly
origin, or you can be well-to-do and without any sense of humor. Peers
and policemen are the people most utterly devoid of humor on the stage.

The chief duty of the comic ma