Ed. (courteously). I hope so; good morning. (Exit Would-be Reporter.) What a nuisance these fellows are! Highly educated, of course, and all that sort of thing; but I am not sure that the rough-and-ready school was not the better.
W.-be Rep. (re-entering hurriedly). My good Sir! Fancy! the man who has sent you the report of the local fire was educated at a small grammar-school, and never even entered a university!
Ed. Well, what of that?
W.-be Rep. (surprised). You surely won't use his copy?
Ed. (decisively). I surely shall. First come, first served. And now you must allow me. (Returns to his work, to the surprise and disgust of Would-be Reporter. Curtain.)
"PIECE AND WAR!" AT DRURY LANE.
"Victory sits on our helms!" cries Sir Druriolanus Auctor to Henricus Parvus etiam Auctor, as they drive back to "The Helms, Regent's Park," after the curtain has descended on the last scene of the last act of A Life of Pleasure at Drury Lane. Twice has Sir Druriolanus appeared before the footlights at the end of the Fourth Act, when some battle in Burmah is gallantly won by the united dramatic forces under the heroic but comic Captain Harry Nicholls, Colonel Lord Frank Fenton Avondale, Sergeant Clarence Holt, and a handful of the bravest soldiers that ever marched to glory over the boards of old Drury Lane. What the story is, and how these heroes got into the jungle and out again, and how the right man married the right woman, and how the wronged woman would have saved the villain from the vengeance of Henry Desmond O'Neville,—who, alas, had to stay in the green-room while the others were distinguishing themselves in Burmah,—is known to the clever collaborators and a few of their trusted confidants. Of that strange history I, a mere civilian, had every detail blown clean out of my head by the din of the great battle. In fact, never have I heard of any "theatrical engagement" equal to this.
"The Action of the Piece."