THE THREE WEIRD WRITERS OF DRURY LANE.
Scene—Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. Any time before the production of "Cheer, Boys, Cheer."
First W. W. (Sir Druriol nus). When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, shine, or rain?
Second W. W. (C. Raleigh). When the hurly-burly's done,
When by play we've lost or won.
Third W. W. (H. Hamilton). 'Twill be settled by the run!
First W. W. Where the scenes?
Second W. W. (happily). From Polo go
First W. W. (excitedly). To Matabele!
Third W. W. (grandly). Rotten Row!
First W. W. To Worth of Paris!
Second W. W. (receiving a note from the Musical Director). Glover calls!
Third W. W. (having had a line from a Costumier). What! Bosch!
All three (solemnly dancing round the cauldron).
Polo, gold mines, Rotten Row,
Costumes grand, comedian low,
Round about the country go!
The Weird Writers hand in hand
Posters stick throughout the land.
Us they'll write about, about!
Three to one, it will be fine!
Writers three we thus combine!
Piece! The curtain's up!
[They vanish.
And the melodrama,—showing how a match was broken off at a Polo gathering, and how many times in one evening Mr. Henry Neville can take off his hat in a wonderful variety of courteous ways, and how he gets taken off himself by a Matabelian shot; showing, too, how funny Mr. Giddens and Mr. Lionel Rignold can be, and how admirably Miss Fanny Brough behaves as an eccentric lady of fashion in exceptionally trying circumstances; how good as a villain Charles Dalton is; how strikingly Druriolanus has managed stage effects, and how admirably his auxiliaries have done their work,—the melodrama, containing all this and very much more, achieves a distinct success.
Poor Mrs. Langtry! "What all my pretty chicks at one fell swoop!" "The pretty chicks" would be represented by "a pretty cheque." Lots more where they came from, and their fair owner may yet sing about them triumphantly to the tune of "Lillie-bulero," or any other that takes her fancy if she objects to the original air as being out of date. Why not a new version of "Ti-a-ra Boom-de-ay"?
"An Intolerable Nuisance."—The Pall Mall Gazette is to be felicitated upon a praiseworthy but, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempt to institute a campaign against the organ fiends haunting our streets. But the letters which, under the heading "An Intolerable Nuisance," poured in briskly at first, have finally "ceased and determined." We have been told of a village, "in the Ausonian hills," peopled by retired organ-grinders who, having amassed a fortune—resulting from bribes, given by the despairing citizen, as an inducement to the torturer to remove himself "to the next street"—repair thither to enjoy an otium cum dignitate, untroubled by any qualm of conscience for the suffering inflicted by them upon patient Britons. Will some Novum Organon tell us the whereabouts of this Utopia, and let us thither banish in shiploads these "intolerable nuisances."