f invective and her girlish wealth of offensive
personalities the insolence and abuse of her boyish adorer cannot stand
for one moment.

To give an idea of how the comic lovers woo, we perhaps cannot do better
than subjoin the following brief example:

_SCENE: Main thoroughfare in populous district of London. Time:
Noon. Not a soul to be seen anywhere._

_Enter comic loveress R., walking in the middle of the road._

_Enter comic lover L., also walking in the middle of the road._

_They neither see the other until they bump against each other in
the center._

HE. Why, Jane! Who'd a' thought o' meeting you here!

SHE. You evidently didn't--stoopid!

HE. Halloo! got out o' bed the wrong side again? I say, Jane, if you go
on like that you'll never get a man to marry you.

SHE. So I thought when I engaged myself to you.

HE. Oh! come, Jane, don't be hard.

SHE. Well, one of us must be hard. You're soft enough.

HE. Yes, I shouldn't want to marry you if I weren't. Ha! ha! ha!

SHE. Oh, you gibbering idiot! (_Said archly._)

HE. So glad I am. We shall make a capital match (_attempts to kiss
her_).

SHE (_slipping away_). Yes, and you'll find I'm a match that can strike
(_fetches him a violent blow over the side if the head_).

HE (_holding his jaw--in a literal sense, we mean_). I can't help
feeling smitten by her.

SHE. Yes, I'm a bit of a spanker, ain't I?

HE. Spanker. I call you a regular stunner. You've nearly made me silly.

SHE (_laughing playfully_). No, nature did that for you, Joe, long ago.

HE. Ah, well, you've made me smart enough now, you boss-eyed old cow,
you!

SHE. Cow! am I? Ah, I suppose that's what makes me so fond of a calf,
you German sausage on legs! You--

HE. Go along. Your mother brought you up on sour milk.

SHE. Yah! They weaned you on thistles, didn't they?

And so on, with such like badinage do they hang about in the middle of
that road, showering derision and contumely upon each other for full ten
minutes, when, with one culminating burst of mutual abuse, they go off
together fighting and the street is left once more deserted.

It is very curious, by the bye, how deserted all public places become
whenever a stage character is about. It would seem as though ordinary
citizens sought to avoid them. We have known a couple of stage villains
to have Waterloo Bridge, Lancaster Place, and a bit of the Strand
entirely to themselves for nearly