mplated a lengthy stay. They replied that they did. They were
waiting for their demobilisation gratuities. The locality, they added,
was a quiet one, where advancing old age could be met in comfortable
meditation. Also the offices of Messrs. Cox, Box & Co., the Regimental
Agents, were in convenient proximity, and the latest news of the
gratuities could be obtained with a minimum of trouble. Up to the
present the police have not interfered with them, apparently taking
them for workmen employed in repairing the roadway.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"KISSING TIME."

For an infrequent worshipper at the shrine of Musical Comedy the
atmosphere of a first night at a new, or renascent, theatre is perhaps
rather too heady. There are so many potent vintages set on the board;
so many connoisseurs who will offer to tell you beforehand of the
merits of their favourite brands.

I confess, to my shame, that when an actor with whose gifts I am
unfamiliar is received on his entrance with a storm of applause, I
am not prejudiced, as I ought to be, in his favour. On the contrary I
follow his performance the more judicially, and if I cannot find that
it corresponds to his apparent reputation I am apt (wrongly again) to
conclude that the fault lies with him and not with myself.

[Illustration: THE OLD GAIETY IN A NEW HOME.

MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH AND MR. LESLIE HENSON AT THE WINTER GARDEN
THEATRE.]

But in the case of _Kissing Time_, after a rather dull First Act,
during which I kept telling myself that I was not suffering from
senile decay, I had to admit that the gods were in a great measure
justified of their elect. For one thing the authors, taking a bold
and original line (from the French), had produced a coherent plot;
and both dialogue and lyrics were above what I understand to be
the average in this kind. One expects, of course, a little Cockney
licence--"pyjamas" rhymed with "Palmer's," and so on--and a certain
amount of popular banality, as in the song, "Some Day" (rapturously
approved); but there were excellent verses on the text, "A woman has
no mercy on a man," and, I doubt not, much other good stuff which
I missed because Mr. IVAN CARYLL, who conducted (and was probably
thinking more of his own pleasant music than somebody else's words),
did not make enough allowance for my slowness in the up-take of
patter.

Mr. LESLIE HENSON was funny, and should be funnier still when the book
has been