ter he has just given up. FORBES ROBERTSON is good from
first to last as the very weak-knee'd _Julian Beauelere_, sufficiently
emotional in the strong situations, and never better than when the
character itself is at its weakest; that is, in the one great scene with
his wife.

The _Algie Fairfax_, of Mr. GILBERT HARE, was natural where the authors
have allowed him to be natural, and best, therefore, in the last Act, where
he has become a responsible personage in a diplomatic office. The
"three-men-in-a-difficulty" scene went as well as ever, though, on the
whole, played far too slowly, and with so much "suppressed force," that the
celebrated "_Monsieur! a vos ordres!_" when _Orloff_ suddenly breaks out
into "the language of diplomacy," did not electrify the house. On the
contrary, the audience took it very quietly, awaiting with some curiosity
the interference of _Henry Beauclerc_. And it was at this point that the
services of Mr. JOHN HARE in this character were invaluable. Never had his
crisp incisive style produced more marked effect. It is a pity that in the
Third Act, which being the weak point of the play requires all the strength
of the actor to be seriously employed, Mr. HARE should have given a very
light comedy, nay, even a farcical touch to his treatment of the "business"
of sniffing the perfume--when he is literally "on the scent"--and to the
momentous situation of his interview with _Zicka_. "_Maintenant a nos
deux!_" Odd that, in his treatment of the strength of the scent, SARDOU
should have shown the feebleness of his methods. Yet so it is. The play, at
this point, being practically played out, he carelessly chucks the puppets
into a corner. He has made his great scenes, and there's an end of it; let
the weakest go to the wall.

[Illustration: DUET--_Baron Cecil Stein and Lady Henry Bancroft Fairfax_
(_with original model of Strasbourg Clock_)--"Here we are again!"]

[Illustration: SCENT ZICKA--from a (guilt)-stained-glass Russian window.]

Last of all to be mentioned with unstinted praise is Miss KATE RORKE. It is
as well to remember throughout that we are witnessing a play of
semi-French, not purely domestic English life, and the essence of the play
could not be adapted to ordinary English notions. _Julian Beauclerc_, for
example, in England, would never have challenged _Count Orloff_; he might
have had "a deuce of a row with him"; _et voila tout_. _Dora_, as a young
Irish girl, and not, as she is her