I won’t deny that the excellent moral of the play goes far to disarm one’s critical faculty.  Why not confess that one lost one’s heart to the nicest tailor since Evan Harrington?  Indeed, Mr. TULLY (always, I find, quite admirable in characterisation, and that no mere matter of outward trick, but duly charged with feeling) made just such a decent, lovable, sideless officer as it has been the pride of the nation of shopkeepers to produce in the day of challenge.  Whoever was it dared cast Mr. MCKINNEL for the part of a weak kindly old ass of a baronet, without any ruggedness or violence in his composition?  Congratulations to the unknown perspicacious hero and to Mr. MCKINNEL!  Miss MADGE TITHERADGE flapped prettily as a flapper; bit cleanly and cruelly in her biting mood; surrendered most engagingly.  This is less than justice.  She used her queer caressing voice and her reserves of emotional power to fine effect.  Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her Lady Broughton nearly credible and less “unsympathetic” than was just.  Mr. DANIELL is new to me.  He played one of those difficult foil parts with a really nice discretion.

The audience was genuinely pleased.  It dragged from the author a becomingly modest acknowledgment.  He did owe a great deal to his players, but a writer of stage plays need not be ashamed of that.  T.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Ethel (playing at grown-ups). “IS YOUR HUSBAND IN THE WAR, MRS. BROWN?” Mabel. “OH YES, OF COURSE, MRS. SMITH.”

Ethel. “IS HE IN FRANCE?” Mabel. “NO, HE’S IN THE WAR LOAN.”]

* * * * *

THE PLOT PRECAUTIONARY.

(The KAISER addresses his Transatlantic Faithful.)

      Ye stalwart Huns and strident,
          Who can’t come home again,
      Because base Albion’s trident,
          Though largely on the wane,
  Still occupies successfully the surface of the main;

      Give ear, my gallant fellows,
          While I the truth declare;
      Britain’s expiring bellows
          Will shortly rend the air;
  Wiping the earth up then will be a simplified affair.

      But, while at home our Hunnish
          Valour obtains the day,
      It must be yours to punish
          The craven U.S.A.,
  Debouching on them unawares from Sinaloa way.

      I make the rough suggestion,
          And it shall be your care
      To solve the minor question
          Of how and when and where,
  Aided by Gen. CARRANZA, the party with the hair.

      Some pesos and centavos
          He will of course demand
      Before he leads his bravos
          Across the Rio Grande;
  Offer the fellow all he wants—­in German notes of hand.

      Meanwhile the Hyphenated,
          Busy with bomb and knife,
      Will likewise hand the hated
          Gringos a taste of strife,
  Starting with Colonel ROOSEVELT and the Editor of Life.