but absolutely free from offence.  I did not see it until it had reached its eighth night, and I do not remember a piece, taken as a whole, so excellently acted.  Although he does not appear until the Second Act, Mr. WILLIE EDOUIN, as ’Arry ’Ooker, the Private Inquiry Agent, is the feature of the performance.  His politeness to ladies, his assumption of businesslike habits, suggested by his reading and spiking of bogus telegrams brought to him when he is engaged with a client, his urbanity under difficulties, and his cheerful acceptance of the inevitable in whatever shape presented, are all admirable points, and points that are fully appreciated by the audience.  Roars of laughter follow the one after the other when ’Arry ’Ooker is on the stage.  Nothing can be more absurd than his make-up, his bows, his grimaces, and yet under the surface there is a vein of pathos that causes one to feel a pang of genuine regret when the poverty-stricken, light-hearted rogue, who, if he cannot secure a hundred guineas, is equally ready to accept a “tenner,” is marched oft to penal servitude as the Curtain falls.  The clerk of this entertaining individual, Toby, is played by a boy like a boy, by Master Buss.  Farther, Mr. ALFRED MALTBY could not be better as the suspicious and bamboozled husband, Richard Wrackham.  Again, even the small part of Alexander, a Waiter, is well played.  Once more—­the ladies, without exception, are capital; and as a result of this all-round excellence, the piece “goes,” from a quarter to nine till just eleven, with a verve that must be most satisfactory to all concerned.  So I can congratulate the Author upon a piece full of lines that tell, and the Manager upon a play that is likely to rival in popularity its predecessor, the phenomenally-successful Our Flat. And I can offer these congratulations with a dear conscience, because I am neither Author of the piece nor Manager of the theatre, but as Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING might observe, QUITE ANOTHER FELLOW.

* * * * *

LARKS!

SIR,—­I am surprised that any of your Correspondents should doubt that birds eat snow.  There is a bull-finch in my aviary, and I tried him.  He ate it ravenously.  Strange to say, he has not uttered a sound since!  My wife says, “Probably his pipe is frozen.”  This is such a good joke, I think you ought to have it.

Yours, LOVER OF NATURE.

SIR,—­You may like to have the following story in support of the idea that animals are aware that snow is frozen water.  It was related to me by a rather rackety nephew, who has lived part of his life in South America, and whose word can be strictly relied on.  He relates that once, when he was travelling among the Andes, at an elevation of some twenty thousand feet, his mules became very thirsty, and no water was obtainable.  Each animal seized a calabash with its teeth, filled it with snow, and trotted off to the crater of an adjacent volcano; it then waited till the lava melted the snow, which it drank up, and finally trotted back again.  My nephew says he should not have believed a mule could be so clever, if he had not seen it.