In this act, various ladies of rank and title, including a duchess, are displayed in the act of playing bridge, in _Lady Alethea Frobisher’s_ boudoir. They are all handsomely gowned, and exceedingly “bong tong,” but nothing happens at all. Mr. Sutro undoubtedly intends that the picture shall be extremely infamous, and prepare us for the subsequent rebellion of _Lady Alethea’s_ nauseatingly right-minded husband. To my mind, _Lady Alethea_ was but a weak and wishy-washy version of a certain _Lady Teazle_, and if Jericho could fall so easily there must have been Buddensiecks in those days. It deserved to fall. I should like to come down to mere facts, but in “The Walls of Jericho” there are so few that they are scarcely worth mentioning. Viewed from the standpoint of one immune from the bridge germ, it is a dull and preachy succession of platitudes. _Jack Frobisher_, the righteous hero, has made his money in Queensland, with sheep. Perhaps that is why he baas through four acts. He is the husband of _Alethea_. They have a son. She is too absorbed in her “set” to pay much interest to the child, who--thank goodness!--does not appear. In the third act _Frobisher_ announces his intention of returning to Queensland and “nature,” and of taking her with him. Queensland, under any circumstances, must be horrible, but with such a prig as Mr. Sutro’s hero, it would be so loathsome that my sympathy was entirely with _Lady Alethea_, when, like a Laura Jean Libbey lady, she “drew herself up to her full height” and refused to go. In the last act she changed her mind, and went. _Mr. Frobisher_ blew the trumpet, and the walls of Jericho fell. There is the play. As the comedian in the piece remarked--and it is the only phrase you carry away--“Jericho must have been jerry-built.” Mr. Arthur Bourchier, who, I understand, is reveling in the fact that he “discovered” Mr. Alfred Sutro, played _Frobisher_. Mr. Bourchier is an actor-manager of much talk and self-importance. As the righteous husband of a butterfly wife, and the adoring father of an unseen brat, he was lacking in lightness and “sympathy.” The playwright’s point--always presuming that he had one--went hopelessly astray. Mr. Bourchier was a bore, rather than a bridge-pecked husband, and his preachiness was appallingly tedious, his delivery savoring of that supposed to be popular in the House of Commons. I could have slept through it; I think I did.