_The Ch._ (_blandly_). Allow me. How would _this_ do for the second line? “She had a collapsible cup.” A good many people _do_ carry them. I have one myself. Is that all of your Ballad, Mr. Wheedler? _Mr. W._ (_with great relief._) That _is_ all, Sir. [_Censors withdraw, to consider the question._ _The Ch._ (_after consultation with colleagues_). We have carefully considered this song, and we are all reluctantly of opinion that we cannot, consistently with our duty, recommend the Council to license it--even with the alterations my colleagues and myself have gone somewhat out of our way to suggest. The whole subject is too dangerous for a hall in which young persons of both sexes are likely to be found assembled; and the absence of any distinct assertion that the young couple--Molly and--ah--the gentleman who narrates the experience--are betrothed, or that their attachment is, in any way, sanctioned by their parents or guardians, is quite fatal. If we have another Ballad of a similar character from the same quarter, Mr. Wheedler, I feel bound to warn you that we may possibly consider it necessary to advise that the poet’s licence should be cancelled altogether. _Mr. W._ I will take care to mention it to my client, Sir. I understand it is his intention to confine himself to writing Gaiety burlesques in future. _The Ch._ A very laudable resolution! I hope he will keep it. [_Scene closes in._ It is hardly possible that any Music-hall Manager or vocalist, irreproachable as he may hitherto have considered himself, can have taken this glimpse into a not very remote futurity without symptoms of uneasiness, if not of positive dismay. He will reflect that the ballad of “Molly and I,” however reprehensible it may appear in the fierce light of an L. C. C. Committee Room, is innocuous, and even moral, compared to the ditties in his own _répertoire_. How, then, can he hope, when his hour of trial strikes, to confront the ordeal with an unruffled shirt-front, or a collar that shall retain the inflexibility of conscious innocence? And he will wish then that he had confined himself to the effusions of a bard who could not be blamed by the most censorious moralist.