a famous General, whose
_obiter dicta_ in verse are innumerable. I have only space to quote one,
spoken to a soldier with whom he had shaken hands:--

"You are the proudest man in France,
Or at any rate in Flanders,
For you've shaken hands, in a great advance,
With the greatest of Corps Commanders."

Surely in the light of these examples, which might be indefinitely
multiplied, there is no need for the present to fear comparison with the
past in the sphere of conversational verse?

I am, dear Mr. Punch,

Yours faithfully,

NOSTRI TEMPORIS LAUDATOR.

* * * * *

CULTURE IN THE STY.

"Yorkshire Pork Pies, possessing character and individuality, 5 lb.
Price, 15s.--_Daily Express_.

* * * * *

"COLUMBUS OF THE AIR.

Captain Alcock's Story of his Great Atlantic Flight."--_Dublin
Evening Telegraph_.

Would not Vimy-bus be better?

* * * * *

Slough Verdict: _Dulce est de-Cippenham in loco_.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"THE CINDERELLA MAN."

The importation of theatrical sweet-stuff from America is of course a
growing industry. The latest consignment, _The Cinderella Man_, first
arrived in this country in the form of a novel, and the difficulty it
offered was that the struggling hero, _Anthony Quintard_, whose fate
depended, in the absence of common-sense, on his winning a ten thousand
dollar prize for an opera libretto, seemed to me, from samples of his
work exhibited, to be an unlikely competitor. But I must say that when
at the play I saw our Mr. NARES in his garret sucking at his pipe in
that masterful manner and modifying what might so easily have been a too
sticky situation with a charmingly light touch, I began to think better
of _Anthony's_ chances and therefore necessarily of Mr. EDWARD CHILDS
CARPENTER'S general idea. For the author obviously may claim the credit
of this reading, even if I harbour an obstinate private suspicion that
it was only by a very deliberate and steadfast determination on the
part of Mr. NARES as hero and Mr. HOLMAN CLARK as matchmaker that this
particular reading prevailed.

Mr. CARPENTER doesn't believe in mystifications. He explains everything
with the completest candour in his first Act, from which you gather that
a millionaire's daughter, returning from Paris to the immense stuffy New
York mansion, is desperat