* * * * *

THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL.

  House, the enigmatic Colonel, WILSON’S right-hand man in France
  When the PRESIDENT was leading Peace’s great Parisian dance,
  Once again returns to Europe as a journalist free-lance.

  He’s a most sagacious person, indisposed to carp or grouse,
  So we hope he’ll be successful, aided by his tact and nous,
  In upholding Mr. WILSON, not in bringing down the House.

* * * * *

THE UBIQUITOUS SCOT.

From The Times’ summary of news:—­

    “Our Constantinople correspondent, in a message reviewing the situation
    in Armenia, states that the Armenians have captured the ancient town of
    Nakhitchevan, where a Tartan Government had been set up.”

Small wonder that, people complain that no place is safe from Scotland’s activities.  Meanwhile there seems a likelihood of a Tarzan Government being set up in the film world.

* * * * *

From Mrs. ASQUITH’S reminiscences: 

“One day after this conversation he [the late Lord Salisbury] came to see me in Cavendish Square, bringing with him a signed photograph of himself.  This was in the year 1904, at the height of the controversy over Protection.”—­Sunday Times.

As Lord SALISBURY is generally supposed to have died in 1903, Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE has been requested to investigate the incident.

* * * * *

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO.

[Illustration:  THE LAST MAN WAS IN AND WITH ONLY ONE RUN WANTED—­]

[Illustration:  SMITH, OF ALL PEOPLE, DROPPED A CATCH.]

[Illustration:  HE STOLE AWAY—­]

[Illustration:  BUT HIS SIN FOLLOWED HIM.]

[Illustration:  HE DECIDED—­]

[Illustration:  TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY.]

[Illustration:  AFTER MANY YEARS HE RETURNED.]

[Illustration:  “GOOD HEAVENS, SMITH, I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE YOU DROPPED THAT CATCH AT THE CIRCLE.”]

[Illustration:  “YES, I ONCE SAW HIM PLAY WHEN I WAS QUITE A LAD.  ON THAT OCCASION HE HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO DROP A CATCH.”]

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

“HIS LADY FRIENDS.”

The humours of the average farce are so elemental that in the matter of its setting there is small need to worry about geographical or ethnical considerations.  Of course, if its locale is French you may have to modify its freedom of thought and speech, but with a very little accommodation to national proprieties you can either transplant the setting of your play or you can leave it where it was and make use of the convention that for stage purposes all Frenchmen have a perfect command of our tongue and idiom.  But to take a frankly English novel by an English writer, adapt it, as Messrs. NYITRAY and MANDEL have done, for the American stage with an American setting, and then bring it over here and produce it with only one or two actors in the whole cast to illustrate the purity of the American accent, is perhaps to presume rather too much on our generous lack of intelligence.