Meanwhile, how were the librettists to be affected? Clearly, they would have to give more opportunities than usual for musical and saltatory illustration; and accordingly we find the book of "Little Jack Sheppard" full of lyrics--solos, duets, quartets and choruses, all of them set to new airs by competent composers. At the same time, the authors took care not to omit the element of punning dialogue. In this respect the old traditions were to be maintained. Byron, for instance, might very well have written the lines which follow, in which the interlocutors strive to outdo one another in the recklessness of their _jeux de mots_:-- _Thames Darrell._ Wild and Uncle Roland trapped me, They caught this poor _kid napping_, and _kidnapped_ me; Put me on board a ship in half a crack. _Winifred._ A ship! Oh, what a _blow_! _Thames._ It was--a _smack_! When out at sea the crew set me, Thames Darrell, Afloat upon the waves within a barrel. _Win._ In hopes the _barrel_ would turn out your _bier_. _Thames._ But I'm _stout_-hearted and I didn't fear. I nearly died of thirst. _Win._ Poor boy! Alas! _Thames._ Until I caught a fish---- _Win._ What sort? _Thames._ A _bass_. Then came the worst, which nearly proved my ruin-- A storm, a thing I can't _a-bear, a brewin'_. _Win._ It makes me pale. _Thames._ It made me _pale_ and _ail_. When nearly coopered I descried a sail; They did not hear me, though I loudly whooped; Within the barrel I was _inned and cooped_. _All's up_, I thought, when round they quickly brought her; That ship to me of safety was the _porter_. "Little Jack Sheppard"--which had for its chief exponents Miss Farren, Mr. Fred Leslie (a brilliant recruit from the comic opera stage), Mr. David James (who had returned for a time to his old love), Mr. Odell, Miss Harriet Coveney, and Miss Marion Hood (who had graduated in Gilbert-Sullivan opera)--was followed at the Gaiety by "Monte Cristo Junior," in which Messrs. "Richard Henry" presented a bright and vivacious travestie of Dumas' famous fiction, greatly aided by the _chic_ of Miss Farren as the hero, and the inexhaustible humorous resource of Mr. Leslie as Noirtier. Here, for example, is a bit of the scene between these two characters in the Château d'If:-- (_Noirtier, disguised as Faria, pokes his head through the hole in the prison wall. He wears a long grey beard, and is clad in rags._) _Dantès_ (_startled_). This is the rummiest go I e'er heard tell on! _Noirtier._ Pray pardon my intrusion, brother felon-- I'm Seventy-Seven. _Dantès._ You look it--and the rest!