Of course, the skilful performer must carefully avoid swinging his tiny figures aimlessly thru the air. He must limit the feats that he permits them to accomplish to those which can be actually accomplished by human beings, altho he can do easily what the human beings can achieve only with more or less obvious effort, and he can impart a volatile elasticity a little beyond the power of any human being however favored by Terpsichore. When 'Salome' was, for a season, the sensation of the hour, it was produced by Holden's marionettes; and it afforded a delightful spectacle long to be remembered by all who had the felicity of beholding it. Whatever of vulgarity or of grossness there might be in the play itself, or in the Dance of the Seven Veils, was purged away by the single fact that all the performers were puppets. So dexterous was the manipulation of the unseen operator who controlled the wires and strings which gave life to the seductive Salome as she circled around the stage in most bewitching fashion, and so precise and accurate was the imitation of a human dancer, that the receptive spectator could not but feel that here at last the play of doubtful propriety had found its only fit stage and its only proper performer. The memory of that exhibition is a perennial pleasure to all who possess it. A thing of beauty it was; and it abides in remembrance as a joy forever. It revealed the art of the puppet-show at its summit. And the art itself was eternally justified by that one performance of the highest technical skill and of the utmost delicacy of taste. If the most marvelous exploits of terpsichorean art, almost inexecutable by the human toes and the human legs of living dancers, are capable of reproduction by puppets skilfully manipulated by the puller of the wires and strings whereby the little figures are suspended, so also are the dexterous feats of the juggler. One of the specialties of the sole surviving puppet-show of this sort in the Champs-Elysées is the performance of a juggler who tosses aloft and catches in turn a number of glittering balls. The delicate balancing of the tight-rope walker, with her frequent pirouettes on her toes, and with her surprising summersets, is also one of the exhibitions in which the puppet can defy the rivalry of any living executant, however skilful in the art. At the circus we feel that the tightrope dancer might fall, whereas at the puppet-show we know with certainty that any fatal mishap is impossible. In Holden's marionette program the miniature mimicry of humanity was carried to the utmost edge of the possible; and no item on his bill of fare was more delectable than the series of scenes in which the traditional Clown and Pantaloon played tricks on the traditional Policeman, and in which they joined forces in belaboring an inoffensive donkey. As the unfortunate quadruped was also a puppet, there was no painful strain on our sympathy. IV