_Sir Lancelot_ is compelled by "circumstances over which he has no control" to remain behind at court, all through the selfishness of _King Arthur_ (so unlike him, too, for once!), who fancies the Round Table will be a trifle dull when all his "blooming companions have faded and gone," and so the unfortunate young knight has to say to the Queen, as Mr. CHEVALIER'S Coster sings to his "lidy-love," "_I'm bound to keep on lovin' yer! d'yer 'ear?_" and he is watched by _Macbeth-Mordred_ (Mr. FRANK COOPER) and his be-witching mother _Lady Macbeth-Morgan-le-Fay_ (Miss GENEVIEVE WARD). [Illustration: _C-m-ns C-rr (rising to the occasion out of the mystic mere)._ "Up I come with my little plot!"] In Act Two, while _Ellen-Guinevere_ and girls are out a-maying in one of the most lovely of "As You Like it" woodland scenes (with a fool in the forest, too) ever beheld on any stage, _Lady Macbeth-Morgan_ and _Macbeth-Mordred_ overhear the love-making of _Guinny_ and _Lancy_; and in Act Three these "two clever ones," as poor _Affery_ was wont to style _Flintwich_ and _Mrs. Clennam_, reveal the truth to _Arthur-Othello_, who has taken from the hand of the suicided _Ophelia-Elaine_ (Miss LENA ASHWELL) a note, which assists him in discovering the wickedness of sly _Sir Lancy_ and the giddy _Guinny_. _Sir Lancy_ cries, "Strike on!" and _King Henry Irving Arthur_ is just "on strike" when he exclaims "I cannot kill thee," and _Excalibur_, a notably sharp blade on occasion, fails him now. _Lancy_ is banished; and takes it very quietly, going out like a lamb. _King Arthur_ and all the knights go off to the wars, leaving _Guinevere_ in charge of _Sir Macbeth-Mordred_ and _Mrs. Morgan-le-Fay_, female professor of necromancy, table-turning-medium, "parties attended," &c. In Act last _Guinevere_ is imprisoned in a tower, and is made love to by that awfully Bad Knight, _Sir Mordred_, who seizes this chance of playing _Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert_ to _Guinny's Rebecca_, only that there is no window from which she can threaten to throw herself: and so the wicked wooing comes to a rather tame conclusion. In the last scene _Macbeth-Mordred_ and _Lady Morgan-Macbeth_ are now King and Queen, and poor _Rebecca-Guinny_ is going to be burnt _à la Juive_, when the herald's challenge is answered by a very Black Knight, who keeps himself awfully dark, and who does not say, "I am RICHARD C[OE]UR DE LION," but lifting his steel nose-protector (most useful except when the Knight has a bad cold), reveals "The King!" Then comes the fight--and ah, would that here one of the swords could have been poisoned, and that _Mordred_, after slaying _Arthur_, should himself have been stabbed to death by his own weapon, while at the same time _Mrs. Morgan-le-Fay_ might have shouted, "See the Queen drinks to _Arthur_," and then she could have drained a poisoned cup, and so obtained her "_coup de grâce_."