I am in the fortunate position of having yet to read Mr. Arnold Bennett's novel, from which Mr. Pryce's comedy has been adapted, and am therefore free to treat the play itself on what I take to be its merits. It may be that the adapter assumed in us a little previous knowledge of the history of Helen's love affair, or that at least there was an obscurity about her past that wanted clearing up by retrospective illumination; but that is my only possible criticism; and I heartily congratulate the Vaudeville management on having at last discovered a play that promises to reward their enterprise.
Not suspecting that there would be a change of hours after the second night, I arrived on the third night punctually at 8, to find that the performance was announced to begin at 8.30. Punctually at that hour I returned, to find that it did not commence till 9; that in the meantime I was to assist at a song-and-talk recital of which no threat had been published. My quarrel is not with Mr. Frederic Norton who did it, though his clever entertainment began with some songs about fishes and things that might have warmed a Penny Readings' audience but left me bitterly cold. My complaint is of a wasted hour and a bolted dinner. I mention it only to prove that, whatever the provocation he has suffered, a Dramatic Critic is incapable of prejudice.
O. S.
Another Impending Apology.
"ALBANIA'S NEW RULER
How Prince William will enter his Kingdom.
FOUR"
Westminster Gazette.
Looping the loop on all fours?
"Shooting on the river Doe, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Colonel Kennaway, Greenlaw, shot a fine specimen of the male gadwall, a comparatively rare visitor."—Glasgow Herald.
Col. Kennaway (to deceased male gadwall). "That'll teach you to be so beastly rare."