"The Great Gamble."
A man who elopes with his friend's wife cannot fairly expect to command general sympathy when, sooner or later, he has to pay the claims of offended morality. Yet one could not help being a little sorry for Colonel Herrick, the leading delinquent in Mr. Jerome's play. For scarcely had they started for the Continent from Charing Cross (to be precise, the train was passing through Chislehurst) when the lady suddenly repented of her rash act and burst into unassuageable tears. If, on reaching Dover, he had had the happy thought of despatching her back to her home as unaccompanied baggage, he would have saved himself a vast deal of trouble. But, being a soldier, he set his teeth and went forward, and for eight days she made the hotels of Europe ring with her lamentations. Nor was this his only source of discomfort. Though, for convenience, they appeared in the visitors' books as man and wife, the lady's attitude compelled the maintenance of platonic relations, and, whereas in actual life this would merely have meant that he had to occupy a separate bedroom, in Mr. Jerome's vision of things as they might be it meant that he had to sleep in the bath-room.
It will be readily understood that, to The Colonel, the advent of the infuriated husband was of the nature of a relief. Thanks to the intervention of a large assortment of friends, and after assurance given of the lady's technical retention of her virtue, he agrees to take her back if she cares to rejoin him. It is true that before the happy conclusion, so satisfactory to The Colonel, is reached, a duel manqué is interposed; but this is designed for the sole benefit of the audience and does not affect the result.
Meanwhile, the lady adopts an enigmatic behaviour. On the appearance of her husband she exchanges the black dress of remorse for the gay yellow garb of a mind at ease; yet under his very nose she permits herself to exhibit a very intimate delight in The Colonel's more obvious attractions. So cryptic indeed is her conduct (both for us and her friends) that it is arranged that her choice between the two men shall be decided by the test of a dream. In consequence, however, of an attack of insomnia this dream (like the duel) fails to come off and shortly after midnight her waking doubts are resolved in her husband's favour.
It will be seen that, the stuff of Mr. Jerome's play is sufficiently fatuous; but Mr. Edmund Maurice as The Colonel was always amusing, and in the multitude of counsellors there was merriment. Unfortunately Mr. Stanley Cooke, as a Herr Professor and leader of the chorus, did not quite succeed in executing his share of the fun.
How Unhappy could I be with Either!
The Husband Mr. Michael Sherebrooke,
The Wife Miss Sarah Brooke.
The Colonel Mr. Edmund Maurice.
The farce was varied by a very amateur romance as between a young American and the niece of an hotel-keeper; also by a slab of melodrama (dealing with the girl's parentage) which only escaped from pure banality by the too brief glimpse it gave us of that admirable actress, Miss Ruth Mackay.
The scene (perhaps the best part of the whole show) was laid in "An Ancient Grove" adjacent to a German University. (The catalogue, peculiarly reticent about proper names, offers my memory no refreshment.) This "Ancient Grove," unchanged throughout the play, served a number of useful purposes. It made excuse for the intermittent apparition (otherwise inexplicable) of a little woodland figure that played upon a pipe. Its proximity to an hotel afforded occasion for meal after meal en plein air. Its proximity to a University Town encouraged the frequent passage of German students, vivacious and vocal; also the convenient appearance of any foreign resident or visitor at a moment's notice. Its Statue of Venus (fully draped) afforded an authentic incitement to the making of love. Its environs enabled Mr. Jerome to dispose of his puppets whenever their presence became undesirable. They simply said, "Let us stroll in the woods;" or "Come for a walk with me," and he was rid of them. Finally the "Ancient Grove" contained a central patch of boscage in whose cover one of the duellists, arriving on the terrain a little before the time, remained perdu in slumber, undisturbed by a loud conversation carried on within a few feet of him by all the other parties to the combat.
Indeed the scenery put in some good work, and I really don't know what we should have done without it.
The Great Gamble was, of course, the lottery of marriage. But for some of us it meant the risk we ran in attending the first night of a play by Mr. Jerome after our bitter experience of his Rowena in Search of a Father. To say that his present work is an improvement upon his last would be to damn it with a fainter praise than it deserves. The Great Gamble is a strange and inscrutable medley, but it has its exhilarating moments, and the humour of its dialogue, though it is mitigated by the Professor's contributions, is worthy of a much better design.
O. S.
"Now that Miss Cecil Leitch has won the Ladies' Golf Championship after seven years' unsuccessful striving, it may be suggested that she might alter the spelling of her name to Leach. Just to show how she stuck to it!"—Glasgow Evening News.
The writer should have stuck to his dictionary.
"It was officially stated yesterday that Dr. Herbert William Moxon, the son of a former prominent Unionist in West Derbyshire, had consented to address a meeting of Liberals with a view to his adaptation as Liberal candidate for West Derbyshire."
Daily Mail.
These adaptable politicians.
"Mr. Palmer would still deserve to be crowned with unfading laurels."—Times.
Palmer qui meruit ferat.