“‘He did,’ said I. “The chief took up the grip and handed it to the prisoner with a bow, and says to the director crowd: ‘Do any of you recognize this gentleman?’ “They all shook their pink faces. “‘Allow me to present,’ he goes on, Señor Miraflores, president of the republic of Anchuria. The señor has generously consented to overlook this outrageous blunder, on condition that we undertake to secure him against the annoyance of public comment. It is a concession on his part to overlook an insult for which he might claim international redress. I think we can gratefully promise him secrecy in the matter.’ “They gave him a pink nod all round. “‘O’Day,’ he says to me. ‘As a private detective you’re wasted. In a war, where kidnapping governments is in the rules, you’d be invaluable. Come down to the office at eleven.’ “I knew what that meant. “‘So that’s the president of the monkeys,’ says I. ‘Well, why couldn’t he have said so?’ “Wouldn’t it jar you?” XVIII THE VITAGRAPHOSCOPE Vaudeville is intrinsically episodic and discontinuous. Its audiences do not demand dénouements. Sufficient unto each “turn” is the evil thereof. No one cares how many romances the singing comédienne may have had if she can capably sustain the limelight and a high note or two. The audiences reck not if the performing dogs get to the pound the moment they have jumped through their last hoop. They do not desire bulletins about the possible injuries received by the comic bicyclist who retires head-first from the stage in a crash of (property) china-ware. Neither do they consider that their seat coupons entitle them to be instructed whether or no there is a sentiment between the lady solo banjoist and the Irish monologist. Therefore let us have no lifting of the curtain upon a tableau of the united lovers, backgrounded by defeated villainy and derogated by the comic, osculating maid and butler, thrown in as a sop to the Cerberi of the fifty-cent seats. But our programme ends with a brief “turn” or two; and then to the exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if he will, the slender thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that, perhaps, only the Walrus will understand. _Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio, Republic of Anchuria._