Czytaj książkę: «Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905», strona 21

THE NEIGHBOR’S DOG

By Una Hudson

Half an hour after the new tenant had taken possession of the house next door, Miss Clementina Liddell looked out of her parlor window and saw a small, brown dog making himself very much at home on her front lawn.

Now, though the dog himself was small, his feet were not, and he was industriously digging a hole in the middle of Miss Clementina’s bed of scarlet geraniums.

Miss Clementina was indignant. But for her unwillingness to speak to a gentleman to whom she had not been properly introduced, she would have promptly crossed the strip of grass between the two houses and demanded that the intruder be forced to return to his own lawn.

As it was, she went out and attempted to “shoo” him off. But the little brown dog would not shoo. He stopped digging, and, with much waving of his stubby tail and a friendly bark or two, launched himself at Miss Clementina.

She stepped hastily backward, but not before the front of her neat, pink morning gown had been hopelessly soiled by the dog’s muddy feet.

“You bad, bad dog,” she scolded, energetically, emphasizing her words by a lifted forefinger.

The little dog barked cheerfully and circled twice around her. He was so frankly, so joyously irrepressible, that Miss Clementina did not know whether to feel amused or vexed.

“Oh, well,” she compromised, “I dare say you mean well. And we can fill up the hole you’ve dug, but I do hope you won’t do it again.”

She looked him over critically.

“You’re thin,” she decided, mentally; “shockingly thin. I’m afraid your master doesn’t feed you enough. He probably has an absurd notion that a dog shouldn’t be fed but once a day. I’ve heard of such things, and I think it’s positively inhuman.”

Miss Clementina glanced furtively toward the house next door. No one was in sight. She bent over the wriggling brown dog.

“You poor thing,” she whispered, “come around to the kitchen. For once in your life you shall have all you can eat.”

It was a rash promise, and the keeping of it involved the chops for luncheon and all the milk in the house.

“He’s rather a nice dog, don’t you think?” Miss Clementina said to the maid, as she watched him eat. “But he has a dreadful appetite. I think we’d best tell the butcher’s boy to bring some dog’s meat; chops are so expensive.”

II

Mr. Kent Maclin took his hat and stick and started for his customary after-dinner stroll. On the front porch he found a small, brown dog busily engaged in reducing the doormat to a pulp.

Mr. Maclin recognized the dog as one belonging to the next door neighbor; he had seen him earlier in the day digging in a bed of scarlet geraniums. If people would keep dogs, Mr. Maclin thought they ought at least to teach them to behave. Still, if the lady who owned the dog could stand it to have her flower beds ruined, Mr. Maclin supposed he ought not to mind a chewed-up doormat.

The dog was only a puppy, anyway. His manners would probably improve as he grew older. Mr. Maclin stooped and patted him kindly on the head. The stubby brown tail thumped the floor ecstatically, and a red tongue shot out and began licking the polish from Mr. Maclin’s shoes.

“Jolly little beggar, aren’t you?” said the gentleman. But he backed hastily away from the moist, red tongue.

III

Mr. Maclin ordered a new doormat every three days, and kept a package of dog biscuits in the drawer of the library table. He dealt these out with a lavish hand whenever the little brown dog saw fit to call for them, and was not without hope that a cultivated taste for dog biscuit might in time replace a natural one for doormats.

Mr. Maclin would have been glad to make the acquaintance of the supposed owner of the little brown dog, but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

But one day, as he watched the little brown dog digging as usual in the geranium bed, he had an inspiration.

He paid a visit to the florist, and came back with a long pasteboard box tucked under his arm. It was filled with a glowing mass of red geraniums.

The composition of a suitable note to accompany the flowers was a task requiring much time and mental effort.

Finally, in sheer desperation, Mr. Maclin wrote on one of his cards, “To replace the flowers the dog has dug up,” and dropped it among the scarlet blossoms.

He had hesitated between “the dog” and “your dog,” but had decided against the latter, being fearful that it might, perhaps, be construed as conveying a subtle hint of reproach. Mr. Maclin’s lawn also was defaced by many unsightly holes.

Miss Clementina wondered a little that the article “the” should have replaced the possessive pronoun “my.” But on reflection she decided that one might not unreasonably object to confessing in so many words to the possession of a dog who so persistently did all the things he ought not to do. And, anyway, it was nice of Mr. Maclin to have sent the flowers.

Miss Clementina wrote a charming note of thanks, and earnestly assured Mr. Maclin that she didn’t object in the least to the little dog’s digging up her lawn.

Mr. Maclin smiled at the naïveté of the little note, and tucked it carefully away in his pocketbook.

Thereafter the two bowed soberly when they chanced to meet, and occasionally exchanged a casual remark concerning the weather.

And once, when Miss Clementina was picking the dead leaves from what was left of the geranium plants, Mr. Maclin paused to remark that the little brown dog seemed very fond of her.

“And of you, too,” Miss Clementina had quickly returned. It couldn’t be pleasant, she thought, for Mr. Maclin to feel that his pet had deserted him for a stranger.

“It’s the dog biscuits I give him,” Mr. Maclin explained, confidentially.

“Oh,” said Miss Clementina, “is he fond of them? I’ve always considered meat much more nourishing.”

“I dare say it is,” Mr. Maclin agreed. “But dog biscuits are handier to keep about. And he comes for them so often.”

Then, covered with confusion, he beat a hasty retreat. He hadn’t intended to hint at the voracious appetite of Miss Clementina’s pet.

IV

Miss Clementina looked with dismay at the much battered object the little brown dog had just brought in and laid at her feet. It was all that remained of Mr. Maclin’s best Panama hat.

Miss Clementina picked it up gingerly. She crossed the strip of lawn between the two houses and rang her neighbor’s doorbell.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, extending the hat to its owner. “It’s really too bad of the little dog.”

“It’s of not the very slightest consequence,” returned Mr. Maclin, gallantly.

“Oh, but I think it is,” Miss Clementina insisted. “He’s a very bad little dog, really. Don’t you think perhaps you ought to whip him – not hard, but just enough to make him remember?”

“Whip him! Whip your dog! My dear Miss Liddell, I couldn’t think of such a thing.”

Miss Clementina’s eyes seemed very wide indeed.

“But he’s not my dog at all,” she protested. “Isn’t he yours, Mr. Maclin?”

“I never laid eyes on him,” said Mr. Maclin, “until I moved here. The first time I saw him he was digging in your geranium bed.”

“Oh!” said Miss Clementina, and began to laugh.

“And to think,” she said, “of all the outrageous things he has done! And neither of us daring to say a word because we each thought he belonged to the other.”

Mr. Maclin laughed with her. “I think,” he said, “that from now on the little brown dog will have to reform.”

V

But the little brown dog did not reform. With unabated cheerfulness he continued to dig in Miss Clementina’s geranium bed, and to chew Mr. Maclin’s doormat.

“He’s hungry,” said Miss Clementina; “you should give him more dog biscuits.”

“He has too much to eat,” retorted Mr. Maclin. “He digs holes in the geranium bed to bury the bones you give him.”

The little brown dog was fast becoming a bond of union between the lonely man and the lonelier woman.

“Your dog has chewed up my new magazine,” Miss Clementina would call to her neighbor. “Do take him home.”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Maclin would call back. “That is not my dog. My dog is chasing a gray cat out of the back yard.”

But one day the little brown dog disappeared. Mr. Maclin laid down a new doormat, and said he was glad it needn’t be chewed up right away.

Miss Clementina filled in the holes in the geranium bed, and set out some new plants. She gathered up a bone, two old shoes and a chewed-up newspaper, and expressed the hope that once more she might be able to keep the lawn tidy.

Twenty-four hours later the little brown dog had not returned. Mr. Maclin went out and gave the unoffending new doormat a savage kick. Then he put on his hat and went down the street – whistling. It was not a musical whistle. On the contrary, it was shrill and ear-piercing. It was, in fact, the whistle that the little brown dog had been wont to interpret as meaning that Mr. Maclin desired his immediate presence.

Once, when Mr. Maclin paused for breath, he heard faintly: “Dog, dog, dog!”

It was thus that Miss Clementina had been in the habit of summoning the little brown dog.

Mr. Maclin turned and walked in the direction of her voice. Folly, like misery, loves company.

“The little brown dog,” said Miss Clementina, when Mr. Maclin had overtaken her; “where do you suppose he can be? I’ve called until I’m hoarse.”

“And I have whistled,” said Mr. Maclin, “but he doesn’t answer.”

“I can’t believe that he ran away,” said Miss Clementina; “he was so fond of us.”

“And I’m sure he wasn’t stolen,” said Mr. Maclin. “He wasn’t valuable enough to steal.”

“I thought,” said Miss Clementina, “that I was glad to have him leave. He certainly did mess the place up terribly. But I miss him so, I’d be downright glad to have him come back and dig a hole in the geranium bed.”

“I’ve a new doormat waiting for him,” said Mr. Maclin. “Miss Clementina, where do you suppose he is?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Clementina. “I only wish I did. Why, there’s a little brown dog now. Perhaps – Here, dog, dog!”

Mr. Maclin’s whistle supplemented Miss Clementina’s call, but the brown dog took no heed.

“It’s some one else’s dog,” said Miss Clementina. “Don’t you see, he has on a collar?”

But Mr. Maclin had seen something else – a small, brass tag attached to the dog’s collar.

“Miss Clementina,” said he, “do you suppose the little brown dog’s tax was paid?”

“Tax?” questioned Miss Clementina.

“Yes, the dog tax, you know.”

“I didn’t know there was a dog tax,” said Miss Clementina.

“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Maclin, “that the dog-catcher has caught the little brown dog.”

To Miss Clementina’s mind the dog-catcher suggested awful possibilities. “Oh!” she said, “what can we do?”

“I shall go at once to the pound,” said Mr. Maclin, determinedly, “pay his tax and take him out.”

VI

At the end of an hour Mr. Maclin returned. With him came the little brown dog. He wriggled joyously, and planted his dirty feet on Miss Clementina’s trailing skirts.

“His manners are just as bad as ever,” she said. “But I’m so glad to have him back. Was it the dog-catcher?”

“It was the dog-catcher,” said Mr. Maclin. “But it won’t happen again. I’ve paid his tax and bought him a collar. See, there’s a place on it for his owner’s name. But, of course, I couldn’t have it engraved, for he seems to have no owner. Miss Clementina, don’t you think it a pity for so nice a little dog not to belong to some one?”

There was that in Mr. Maclin’s voice that brought a faint flush to Miss Clementina’s cheek.

“I suppose,” went on the gentleman, “when he’s digging in your geranium bed he thinks he’s your dog, and when he’s chewing my doormat he’s probably laboring under the delusion that he’s my dog. Miss Clementina, it would be so easy to make him our dog. Don’t you think we’d better?”

“I – I don’t know,” faltered Miss Clementina.

But the words were muffled against Mr. Maclin’s coat, and he took the liberty of assuming that she did know.

LOVE AND YOUTH

 
Butterfly,
Your little day flit on;
Youth drifts as gayly by,
And soon as you is gone.
 
 
Wayside flower,
Be darling of the day;
Youth shares your sunny hour,
And with you slips away.
 
 
Woodland bird,
Hush not one fervent strain;
Love’s voice with yours is heard,
Then neither heard again.
 

John Vance Cheney.

THE DRAMATIC SEASON’S LAST MOMENT

By Alan Dale

Going – going —

Just as, with a sputter and a flicker and a last expiring tremor, we had begun to realize that the going season was, indeed, nearly gone, something happened. There was a rally, and a brief return to animation. The corpselike season sat up and waved its hands. An electric current, applied to its extremities by one admirable actress and one enterprising manager, was the cause of this surprising change, and the writing of epitaphs was temporarily postponed.

The return of the season to a semblance of interesting activity was due to the arrival in our midst of Miss Marie Tempest, who came from England just as the sad troupe of her unsuccessful countrymen had returned to that land. Miss Tempest, with a woman’s daring, and the true spirit of “cussedness,” took every risk, and, though even the enthusiastic and misinformed London papers have been obliged to avoid pet allusions to the “furore created in America” by the unfortunate English actors who failed here this season, the admirable little comedienne had no qualms.

Nor had her manager, Mr. Charles Frohman. It is pleasant, at times, to record managerial enterprise that cannot possibly be a bid for pecuniary reward. Mr. Frohman, whose name is often unfortunately mentioned in connection with the sad, cruel, oppressive, commercial speculators in dramatic “goods,” belongs absolutely and utterly to another class. It is ten thousand pities that the enthusiasm and real artistic fervor of this undaunted, farseeing manager should be shadowed by this association. Mr. Frohman actually sent Miss Marie Tempest and her English company over from London for a short stay here of four weeks, merely to let us sample her new play, “The Freedom of Suzanne,” that had been so well received in England.

Those who try to tar Mr. Frohman with the commercial brush will readily perceive their error. Had Miss Tempest packed the Empire Theater at every performance, the enormous expenses of this undertaking could never have been defrayed. The manager did not quiver. The actress – viewing the return of her countrymen, with flaccid pocketbooks, from the land of dollars – had no misgivings. She came, and she saw, and she conquered.

Miss Tempest, in “The Freedom of Suzanne,” was worth waiting for. She was worth suffering for. We were perfectly willing to admit that the season was over, and we were not sorry, for it was one of the worst on record. But to the Empire we trooped to sample this last offering, and it was so good, and so delightful, that it flicked the season back for a month. Miss Tempest had a first-night audience that gave the “among-those-present” chroniclers quite a tussle. It seemed like early September, when theatrical hopes run high, and the demon of disillusion is not even a cloud as big as a man’s hand.

Since Marie Tempest left musical comedy – that sinking ship – to its fate, and devoted herself to the development of her own unique gifts as a comedienne, her husband, Mr. Cosmo Gordon Lennox, has been the tailor that made the plays fit. If a playwriting husband can’t fit his own wife, then his capabilities must surely be limited. Mr. Lennox proved, in “The Marriage of Kitty” last year, that he quite understood the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the clever little actress, and knew exactly how to make them salient. Although English, nobody could accuse Miss Tempest of being a “bread-and-butter miss.” The most vivid imagination could never associate her with a white muslin gown, a pretty blue sash, a Christmas-card expression of surprised innocence, and the “prunes and prisms” attendant upon those luxuries.

Mr. Lennox had to trip across the English Channel, which is a nasty, “choppy” crossing, to find material that would suit his wife. That is always a troublesome thing to do, because the “goods,” when bought, must be well soaked overnight, in order to remove the sting. This was the policy he pursued with “The Marriage of Kitty.” The tactics were very similar in the case of “The Freedom of Suzanne,” which was cut from the cloth of “Gyp’s” novel, “Autour du Divorce.” According to the program, the author “wished to acknowledge his indebtedness for certain passages in the play to a novel by the Comtesse de Martel.” The “Comtesse de Martel” sounded nice and swagger, though “Gyp” is anything but that in her novels.

The comedy was very light, and frolicsome, and jolly, and – er – naughty, and – er – respectable. You had to stay to the very end, which was not bitter, in order to discover that it was quite respectable. That is where the English playwright always seems to improve upon the French. In London, a heroine may be volatile, and saucy, and unconventional, and iconoclastic, and spicy, and shocking, and quite horrible, but in the last act the adapter allows you to discover that she is really a very good, nice, whole-hearted woman; that she loves her husband in a faithful, wifely way, and that she will live happily ever afterward, a perfect picture of all the domestic graces. The curse has gone! It is the triumph of deodorization.

So in “The Freedom of Suzanne,” while Suzanne danced a veritable can-can through two acts, she was brought back to a sedate English jig in the third. It was a play that could not stand, and that did not need a close analysis, for it was just a vehicle by means of which Miss Tempest could let loose the matchless bag-o’-tricks among which her art may be said to lurk. Suzanne gave her the finest acting part that she has ever had. It was an intellectual treat to sit and watch the really exquisite, delicate work that she embroidered upon the diaphanous theme of the amusing little comedy.

Suzanne was terribly tired of her husband, and Charles did seem a bit of a bore. He was the type of “married man” who can no longer see graces in the woman who belongs to him – because she belongs to him. Suzanne chafed, and wanted her freedom. She clamored for a divorce, but there were no grounds upon which to obtain it. She yearned for the right to select her own associates; to do what she liked; to have a good time, and to be responsible to nobody. There was a mother-in-law in the case, of course, and, although the brand has become tiresome, this particular lady was necessary in order to emphasize Suzanne’s apparently hapless plight.

Miss Tempest’s success was assured when, in the first act, she recited the story of her own scandalous doings, with the divorce in view. As a piece of acting, this was worth the attention of every theatergoer. The actress sat on a sofa, and ran through the list of episodes in an amazing way. Some of her story she told with her eyes, with her facial expression, with gestures; the rest she set down in words freighted with every variety of intonation. Not once did she rise from that sofa. The other people were grouped around her, and all they had to do was to display astonished horror. They made a framework.

You were held in a grip of admiration by the telling effect of this scene. No other actress could have played it as Miss Tempest did. Her every meaning leaped over the footlights. Not a word, or the inflection of a word, escaped attention. It was an absolutely flawless piece of comedy. The artistic comedy of Réjane lacked the richness and unction of Miss Tempest’s methods. Those who failed to see “The Freedom of Suzanne” missed a rare treat.

There was very little plot, of course. Suzanne got her divorce by collusion, in a manner that was a bit surprising in view of the fact that Charles was portrayed as a man of culture and refinement. In order to please Suzanne, he gave her a good shaking in the presence of a witness – as grounds for divorce! It was while waiting for the decree to be made “absolute” that Suzanne naturally discovered her love for him, and her rooted objection to the attentions of the three blackguards who were kowtowing before her. This assuredly was not new. It was merely the popular divorce twist of French playwrights.

In the last act of the play, Suzanne and her husband were reconciled, and all the improprieties of the earlier acts carefully smoothed away. “The Freedom of Suzanne” itself, however, did not matter very much. Sledge-hammer criticism could pulverize it. Poor little play! It did not merit any obstreperous handling, for it kept its audience in a state of unreasoning merriment, and it encased Miss Tempest like the proverbial glove. There is nothing more fascinating than perfect comedy acting. It is a tonic, the exhilarating effect of which is invaluable.

Miss Tempest brought over her London leading man, Mr. Allan Aynesworth, a remarkably good actor of drawing-room rôles. The ease and polish of the “thoroughbred” – and “thoroughbred” is a term that should replace the played-out “gentleman” – were convincingly shown. G. S. Titheradge was the other popular London name in the cast. The rest were adequate, but by no means extraordinary. They taught no lesson of artistic excellence, but at the fag-end of the season, we were not clamoring to be taught anything at all. Lessons were the very last thing in the world that we hankered for. Our desire for light entertainment was amply realized. “The Freedom of Suzanne” was a delightful wind-up.

Mr. Frohman, it is said, announced this enterprise as the result of a wish to do something “to be talked about.” We are willing. We are willing at any time to talk about anything that can give us as much undiluted pleasure as this production did. We will even chatter and frivol, if Mr. Frohman will repeat the operation. And by-the-bye, I think that I have done both. My enthusiasm led me away. Let me extinguish it.

From the diminutive to the enormous leads us easily in the direction of that tremendous combination of high spirits and massive corporeality, Miss Alice Fischer. This actress, who has been before the public for a good many years, may be looked upon as one of those curious metropolitan figures that have acquired more popularity off the stage than on it. Miss Fischer has dominated feminine clubs, has associated herself with “movements,” and has posed as advocating a National Theater, even while she did a dance every night in a classic gem entitled “Piff, Paff, Pouf!” She has “starred” occasionally, but never with much success. As a “good fellow” and a delightful acquaintance, Miss Fischer has always been unsurpassed. This rôle, not unusual among men, is unique among women.

Possibly you have heard of actors noted as wits, good fellows, bons-vivants and horse show figures. Their apparent popularity has invariably led you to believe that a “starring” venture would be stupendously successful – that their legions of friends would gather round them, and “whoop” them toward fortune. Such, it has frequently been proved, has not been the case. That cold, critical, money’s-worth-hungry assemblage known as the “general public” has intervened, after a rousing “first-night” that has seemed like a riot of enthusiasm, and has stamped its disapproval upon the proceedings. Some of the strangest failures on the stage have been achieved by those who were brilliantly successful off the stage.

Hitherto this has been the fate of Miss Fischer. Many admired her, but that many were not included in the general public, that has no pronounced predilection for club men or club women. Fortunately – and it is a great pleasure to announce it – in her latest venture at Wallack’s Theater, a new old comedy, and a clever one, by Stanislaus Stange, called “The School for Husbands,” Miss Alice Fischer succeeded not only with her friends, but with the great unknown. She proved herself to be an actress of exceeding vitality and force, and she made not only a popular but an artistic hit.

Of course she was bound to do it sooner or later. We may not have indorsed her previous productions, but we always liked Miss Fischer, with her bouncing good nature, her intelligent outlook, her curious untrammeled demeanor, always suggestive of a huge schoolgirl suddenly let loose; her capital elocution and her agreeable way of insistently seeming at home. In “The School for Husbands,” these qualities appeared quite relevantly. This strange season, now over, which has snuffed out so many poor, feeble little stars, has been very kind to Miss Fischer. She “came into her own.”

Mr. Stange’s play was an amusing comedy, dealing with domestic infelicity – of the tit-for-tat order – in the “old” style. That is to say, it did not flaunt in our faces a fracture of the seventh commandment, or drag in a series of epigrams modeled upon those of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld and Oscar Wilde. Mr. Stange went in for what we call the “artificial,” but it all occurred in 1720. The eighteenth century covers a multitude of sins that are naked and unashamed in the twentieth. We were disarmed in our frenzied analysis when we were confronted with such purely imaginary and entertaining types as Sir John and Lady Belinda Manners, Lady Airish, Lady Speakill, Lady Tattle, Lord Foppington and Lord Drinkwell.

We were back again amid the “old comedy” characters, of whom we always talk with sycophantic admiration. Sometimes we loathe them, but we never say so. There has been a sporadic revival of one or two of these “old comedies” this season, accomplished with that “bargain-counter” atrocity – a sop for vulgar minds – known mischievously as the “all-star-cast.” It has been amusing to watch the cold, dispiriting and almost clammy reception accorded to these “classics,” compared with the cordiality extended to Miss Alice Fischer in her “imitation” classic, “The School for Husbands.” Yet, if a well-read, modern playwright cannot improve upon the eighteenth century, with his sublime knowledge of all that has occurred since – then he must indeed be rather small potatoes.

Mr. Stange made these improvements. While the revived work of the late Oliver Goldsmith and Dion Boucicault languished, the “old comedy” of the twentieth century triumphed. If you saw it, you will understand why. There were episodes in “The School for Husbands” that were very clever and enlivening. All the characters were puppets, but they danced with the latest electric improvements, and their gyrations entertained. Blood they certainly lacked, but nobody cared. It was a relief to watch this amusing but thoroughly refined tomfoolery, and to know that no problem lurked beneath it. It was the Eden Musée, suddenly galvanized into life and pirouetting in all its color and brilliancy.

With Arthur Forrest, who is a fine, distinguished, subtle, convincing actor; with Miss Grace Filkins, Jameson Lee Finney and Mrs. Ida Jeffreys-Goodfriend, Miss Fischer managed to beat any “all-star-cast” – the refuge of the destitute. The star herself was so irresistible, so dominant and so largely vital, that hundreds of people who had merely heard of Alice Fischer were glad to meet her. This “venture” firmly established her, and the establishment was conducted by such legitimate means that the event was unusually interesting.

Oh, I’m tired of stars. I am – I am! Last month I devoted myself almost exclusively to them, and now I find that the cry is still “they come, they come!” To be sure, Miss Marie Tempest and Miss Alice Fischer both achieved success, but now I see before me the plaintive figure of poor little Miss Annie Russell, who didn’t. Miss Russell came to the Criterion Theater with a Zangwill play. It sounds well, doesn’t it? – but I can assure you that the sound was most misleading.

Nothing quite so drab, so despondently dreary, or so damply dismal as “Jinny the Carrier” ever asked for a hearing and got it. Zangwill has lectured upon the drama, and paid pungent respect to its incongruities, but he has proved himself to be infinitely worse than the various playwrights whom he ridiculed. “The Serio-Comic Governess,” thrust upon Miss Cecilia Loftus, was bad enough, but “Jinny the Carrier” went far below it, and stayed there all the time.

It was an “idyll” of Frog Farm, near London, and Frog Farm seemed to be a trifle less amusing than Hunter’s Point, near New York. It introduced us to rural types of deadly monotony, among them being a “village patriarch,” suggesting cheap melodrama; a veterinary surgeon, a postman, a village dressmaker and Jinny herself, who “ran” a wagon, and who subsequently fell in love with a rival who tried to drive her out of the business. There were four acts of cumulative hopelessness, and by the time Jinny was ready to get married, the audience seemed just as ready to die of fatigue.

The humor was supplied by the village dressmaker, who owned a mustache, and who clamored for a depilatory! This pleasing, refined and frolicsome bit of originality failed to awaken people from their torpor. There was a good deal of talk about pigs and horses, while tea, cucumbers and marmalade graced the dialogue incessantly; but the amazed audience could not indorse this rural festival. Jinny, amid the pigs, horses, tea, cucumbers and marmalade, talked in Mr. Zangwill’s best style – a style replete with wordplay or pun – but her setting killed her, and she was soon “done for.”

Perhaps “Jinny the Carrier” was a joke. Who shall say? It is a bit “fishy” – I forgot to say that a real, dead fish was among the débris of this comedy – that two such bad plays as “Jinny the Carrier” and “The Serio-Comic Governess” honored New York to the exclusion of London. It is all very well to say that New York is so generous, so appreciative, so alive to all the good points of clever writers – it is all very well to say that, and sometimes it reads very well – but the fact remains that these plays had no good points. London would have laughed at them in immediate derision. We need feel no pride in the circumstance of their original production in New York. Instead, we should feel perfectly justified in feeling extremely sorry for ourselves. We might even say that both of these plays were foisted upon us in a spirit of “Oh, anything’s good enough for New York!”