artist, he had just succeeded in cracking
the bridegroom's skull.

"We must see this," said we to ourselves. "This is good." And we had a
bob's worth.

But he did not do any of the things that we have mentioned, after
all--at least, we mean we did not see him do any of them. It seems
he did them "off," and then came on and told his mother all about it
afterward.

He told it very well, but somehow or other we were disappointed. We had
so reckoned on that fight.

By the bye, we have noticed, even among the characters of real life, a
tendency to perform most of their wonderful feats "off."

It has been our privilege since then to gaze upon many posters on which
have been delineated strange and moving stage events.

We have seen the hero holding the villain up high above his head, and
throwing him about that carelessly that we have felt afraid he would
break something with him.

We have seen a heroine leaping from the roof of a house on one side of
the street and being caught by the comic man standing on the roof of a
house on the other side of the street and thinking nothing of it.

We have seen railway trains rushing into each other at the rate of sixty
miles an hour. We have seen houses blown up by dynamite two hundred
feet into the air. We have seen the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the
destruction of Pompeii, and the return of the British army from Egypt in
one "set" each.

Such incidents as earthquakes, wrecks in mid-ocean, revolutions and
battles we take no note of, they being commonplace and ordinary.

But we do not go inside to see these things now. We have two looks at
the poster instead; it is more satisfying.

The Irishman, to return to our friend, is very fond of whisky--the stage
Irishman, we mean. Whisky is forever in his thoughts--and often in other
places belonging to him, besides.

The fashion in dress among stage Irishmen is rather picturesque than
neat. Tailors must have a hard time of it in stage Ireland.

The stage Irishman has also an original taste in hats. He always wears a
hat without a crown; whether to keep his head cool or with any political
significance we cannot say.

THE DETECTIVE.

Ah! he is a cute one, he is. Possibly in real life he would not be
deemed anything extraordinary, but by contrast with the average of stage
men and women, any one who is not a born fool naturally appears somewhat
Machiavellian.

He is the only man in the play who does not swallow all the