Mr. Hawtrey and Miss Compton exchange Badinage over a bar of soap.
AT THE PLAY.
"A Busy Day."
I have always wanted to be a grocer. To spend the morning arranging the currants in the window; to spend the afternoon recommending (with a parent's partiality) such jolly things as bottled gooseberries and bloater paste; to spend the evening examining the till and wondering if you have got off the bad half-crown yet—that is a life. Many grocers, I believe, do not realise it, and envy (foolishly enough) the dramatic critic, knowing little of the troubles hidden behind his apparently spotless shirt-front; but even they will admit that to be a grocer for an hour would be fun.
And that (very nearly) was Lord Charles Temperleigh's luck. Being a spendthrift he was kept at The Bungalow, Ashford, without money; he escaped to the shop of his old nurse at Mudborough, with the idea of borrowing from her—and if you are a clever dramatist you can easily arrange that he should be left alone in the shop and mistaken for the genuine salesman. Unfortunately for my complete happiness (and no doubt Lord Charles's too) the shop was a chandler's; however, if that is not the rose, it is at least very near it. The chandler sells soap and the grocer sells cheese, and you can make a joke about the likeness as Mr. R. C. Carton did. And if Lord Charles should happen to be Mr. Charles Hawtrey and he should be accompanied by Miss Compton, you can understand that this and other jokes would lose nothing in their delivery.
Yet somehow the shop scene was not the success it should have been. The First and Third Acts were better; they left more to Mr. Hawtrey. When Mr. Carton is trying to be funny, even Mr. Hawtrey cannot help him much; but when he is taking it easily then he and Mr. Hawtrey together are delightful. Mr. Edward Fitzgerald as an Irish waiter was a joy. Miss Compton was Miss Compton; if you like her (as I do), then you like her. The others had not much chance. It is a Hawtrey evening, and (as such) an oasis in a desert of War thoughts.
M.
A PRELUDE.
["Birds in London are already growing alive to the approach of Spring."—The Times.]