the works of the late Charles H. Hoyt. There was generally
something salient in the Hoyt farces--some happy touch or some hit
that "struck the nail on the head." In the farce at the Savoy, there
was much of the frenzy that is usually associated with the padded
cell, and that is not, as a rule, enlivening to the outsider.

Mr. Douglas Fairbanks, a very "fresh" young actor, was the heroic bell
boy, a very bad advertisement for New York hostelries. He worked
harder than any bell boy has ever been known to do, and it seemed a
shame to waste so much effort on alleged "drammer." Mr. Fairbanks
might possibly have made more of a lasting success in a real hotel
than he will achieve in the spurious affair that was staged. A number
of others, in an extremely uninteresting cast, labored ineffectively.
Mr. Chalmers completely routed the good impression he had made in
"Abigail," and I should recommend him to "bide a wee" before hurling
further manuscripts at susceptible managers--not for their sake, but
for his own.

Mr. Paul Armstrong was luckier with "The Heir to the Hoorah." How true
it is that one can live down anything! It should be an inspiring and
consolatory thought to Mr. Kellett Chalmers. Mr. Armstrong lived down
"The Superstitions of Sue," which, one might have thought, would have
proved to be a veritable old-man-of-the-sea. This is, happily, a
forgetful and unprejudiced public, and hope is rarely extinguished.

Although "The Heir to the Hoorah" was freighted with a title so
prohibitive that people who attach importance to names might be
excused for fighting shy of it, it proved to be a play with so many
real laughs in it that criticism was disarmed--one always says that as
though criticism started armed, which is absurd!--and joined in the
somewhat irresistible mirth. It was a "Western" play, of course. "The
Heir to the Hoorah" couldn't be Eastern. But, by means of the West,
Mr. Armstrong was able to get in some amusing episodes that appealed
exclusively to the East. Much of it was devoted to parody of that
sublime institution known as "evening dress"--popular on Third Avenue
as the "dress suit."

There is nothing really funnier. Of course we are accustomed to it.
Our souls may rebel at its exigencies, but unless we happen to be
millionaires, we cannot afford to flout the conventions. We wear the
"evening dress" because we have been taught that it is respectable and
seemly. In "The Heir to the Hoorah" a number of min