FIRST MUSIC-HALL ARTIST (_watching Mr. J. M. Barrie's "The Twelve Pound Look" from the wings_): "I like this yer sketch; the patter's so good. 'Oo wrote it?" SECOND M.-H. A.: "Bloke called Barrie, I think." FIRST M.-H. A.: "Arst for 'is address. 'E writes our next." The "Balalaika Orchestra," by the way, was a minor sign of the Russian invasion already at its height. Miss Maud Allan had been unfavourably received in 1909 in Manchester, and about the same time the Chicago "Wheat King," Mr. Patten, had been mobbed on the Manchester Exchange, and _Punch_ ingeniously "synthesised" the two events in the following stanza: The types that make the market mad No doubt inspire the self-same loathing In spots that spin, as those whose fad Is chucking up all kinds of clothing. [Sidenote: _The March of Music_] The Russian Ballet was a very different thing from the poses and wrigglings of barefooted Bacchantes, and _Punch_ became lyrical in his eulogies of these "spring-heeled Jacks and Jills." The exquisite romance and fantasy of "The Spectre of the Rose," the "Carnival" and the "Sylphides" were a revelation to those who, like Carlyle, only saw in the old opera-ballet the conversion of the human frame into a pair of animated compasses. The Russian Ballet furnished _Punch_ in his almanack for 1913 with an excellent formula for caricatures of the idols and butts of the hour, but his admiration for the originals was sincere. In the years immediately preceding the war the cinema demands an evergrowing if not altogether appreciative attention. _Punch_ pays a left-handed compliment to the versatility of the film actor, but very properly satirizes the extraordinary representations of English life and dress in the foreign films produced for the English market. The invasion of Debrett by chorus girls, recorded in October 1913, is an old story, but if Punch is to be trusted had then reached dimensions unparalleled in the annals of aristocratic condescension. MUSIC