Punch (100.1891)

48 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Januaet 24, 1891,

A GENERAL VIEW OF " PRIVATE INQUIRY."

I am sufficiently old-fashioned, when I go to the play, to -wish to he amused.
I frankly admit I do not care to be taught a lesson, or to have my mind harrowed
hy the presentation of some psychological study. I can remember Weight, and
even Habley, and the days when a
good piece of fun was the last item of
the programme at the Adelphi and the
Olympic-the chief attraction of the
Pittites, who patronised "half-price."
This being so, I am glad to find at the
Strand—a theatre recalling memories
of Jimmy Rogebs and Johnny Claeke,
Patty Oliveb and Chaelotte Saun-
debs, to say nothing of a lady who was
not only Queen of Comedy but Empress
of Burlesque — "Private Inquiry" a thoroughly
well acted and rattling farce in three Acts. It
is from the French, but as the task of adaptation
has been entrusted to the Author who turned
Bebe the Frisky into Betsy the Wholesome, any
scruples of conscience that the Loed Chambeblain
may possibly have entertained on reading the original
have been successfully removed, and the play, con-
sequently, is not only highly entertaining, but abso-
lutely free from offence. I did not see it until it
had reached its eighth night, and I do not re-
member 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 per-
formance. His politeness to ladies, his assumption
of businesslike habits, suggested by bis reading and
spiking of bogus telegrams brought to him when he **** Uoker & t0,
is engaged with a client, his urbanity under difficulties, and his cheerful accept-
ance 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 1'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 off 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. Further, Mr. Alfbed
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 clear conscience, because
I am neither Author of the piece nor Manager of the theatre, but as Mr. Rudyabd
Kipling might observe, Quite Anothee Fellow.

LARKS!

Sib,—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, Loveb or Katube.

Sie,—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.

Yours obediently, Samuel Sobebsldes.

Sib,—Since writing you that letter about our bull-finch, I have discovered
an even more surprising fact, which I am sure no Naturalist has yet dreamed
of. Not only do birds appreciate snow, but they are very fond of iced beverages.
A torn-tit, who often drinks water from a saucer which we put on our window-
sill, one day found the water frozen. What did the intelligent creature do ?
Why, it rapped on the window-pane with its beak till the window was opened,
then hopped on to the sideboard, and began trying to peck the cork out of a
whiskey bottle ! I took the hint, and poured some of the spirit into the saucer ;
the bird drank it greedily! My wife's comment on this occurrence is really too
good to be lost, so I send it you. She said, "Evidently the bird was not a tom-
titotatler I' Yours, in convulsions, Loves oe Natube {as before).

A PINT OF HALF-AND-HALF.

Qui va la ?' i&ys he."
" ' Je,' replies I, knowing the language."

" Jeames" and another Old Story.
The international susceptibilities of Sheriff Deubio-
lanus— henceforth to bear the Anglo-French title,
Monsieur le Sherif 'Arris de Paris, or 'Arry de Parry,
—appear to have been considerably hurt by a statement
in the Debats to the effect that the appearance in the
London streets of men dressed as Gendarmes—" en gen-
darmes francais," writes Mossoo Dbubiolane—intended
as perambulating advertisements for the Waterloo Pano-
rama, was due to a supreme effort of his managerial
genius. So Sherif Dbubiolane wrote at once to the
London Correspondent of the Figaro, who bears the sin-
gularly French name of Johnson, denying, in his very
best French, that he, M. le Sherif, had had anything to
do with these walking advertisements, or, indeed, with
the Panorama Company at all, from which he had retired
a year ago. Then he adds, like the preux chevalier he is
known to be, that had he still been on the direction of
the aforesaid Compagnie, he, at all events, would never,
never have committed the enormity of even suggesting,
however vaguely, an idea so calculated to needlessly insult
" les susceptibilites francaises." {"Hear.' hear!" and
" Tres bien ! » from the left.) Then M. le Sherif Dbubio-
lane, rising to the occasion, finishes with this magnificent
flourish on the French horn—" Je suis ne en France "—
(Isn't it very much " to his credit," we ask with W. S. C,
that, "In spite of all temptations, To belong to other
nations. He remains an Englishman? " Why, certainly)
—"/« vecu parmiles Frar.cais, etje suis d moitie enfant
de Paris."

Beautiful! Magnifique ! Oar Deubiolanus is sur-
passing even the Gh 0. M., who has been born, more or
less, everywhere, except in Paris. Should the Republic
be in danger, or should Monarchists or Imperialists get a
chance and want a man for the place, let them wire to
Deubiolanus, "a moitie enfant de Paris," and the
" Enfant"—■" Enfant Abbis," not "Enfant Gatti"
—will be ready, aye ready, to assume the purple, and to
bring all his properties with him. " A mozW—and the
other half? That will ever remain British. So d la
santt? de 31onsieur le Sherif-enfa?it-de-Lotidres-et-Paris,
in a pint of Half-and-half, and let it, like Le Sherif
himself, have a good head on!

THE ROLLING- OF THE R'S.

" We are told that the omission to roll it (tli9 letter r) is
as flagrant a misdemeanor as the dropping of the h."—James
Payn in the Illustrated Neivs.

Aib—" The Wearing of the, Green."

Soft-spoken Person sings : —

It's vewy wong, widiculous, and howwid, I've no doubt,
To leave that little letter r unuttahed or unwolled;

But if you haven't any r's you've got to do without,
And I can no maw woll my r's than dwink my clawet
cold.

A Dowic wuggedness of speech I weally can't attain,
And though gwamniawians may wave in leadewetts
and pars, [is vain,

I quite agwee with good James Payn that all their wow
The angwy wout must do without " the wolling of
the r's!"

Hagiological and Histoeical Note.—Dr. Habolu
Browne, "the retiring Bishop" of Winchester, as he is
called, on account of his innate modesty, wrote to the
people of Farnham to say that, "never was there a
Bishop since the time of his earliest predecessor in the
See, St. Swithin, more literally 'at home' at Farnham
Castle than himself." To this fact Dr. H. B is, perhaps,
unaware that the Saint in question owed his name, as
when any visitor called to ask if he were at home, the
Hall-porter of the period invariably answered, "Yes,
Saint's within." Dr. Haeold Bbowne is welcome to
this information, which ought to have been in Notes
and Queries.__

It is said that the invitations for the Drury Lane cele-
bration of Twelfth Night will not he sent out with so
free a band next year, the young men on the recent
occasion having been so Baddeley behaved.

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