Sir HERBERT TREE, always at his best in comedy, was an excellent _Higgins_ in his lighter moods. As for Mr. EDMUND GURNEY, he was far the best dustman I have ever met. His freedom from scruples, combined with a natural gift for unctuous and persuasive rhetoric, commanded admiration. _Higgins_, indeed, who could read potentialities at a glance, considered that he might, under happier conditions, have gone far toward attaining Cabinet rank or filling a Welsh pulpit. Of the others, Mr. PHILIP MERIVALE played the too subsidiary part of _Colonel Pickering_ with admirable self-repression; and Miss ROSAMOND MAYNE-YOUNG, as the mother of _Higgins_, was a very gracious figure. The play was curiously uneven. If one might be permitted to enter and leave at one's pleasure I would advise you to miss out the desultory First Act. But if you insist on seeing it then take care to read your programme before the lights go down and find out that the scene is the porch of a church. I thought all the time that it was the porch of a theatre. Make sure in the same way about the Chelsea flat, or you may mistake it for a charming country cottage. The Second and Third Acts are not to be missed on any account, but I shouldn't worry about the Fourth. In the Fifth you should go away for good the moment that the dustman makes his exit. The tedium that follows is most distressing, and can only be explained as the author's revenge for your laughter. It was a cruel thing to do. But I forgive him. I take away many delightful memories of my evening with _Pygmalion_, and, best of all, the picture of Sir HERBERT'S frank and childlike pleasure at having discovered Mr. BERNARD SHAW. * * * * * [Illustration: _Jones_ (_selecting a uniform for his chauffeur_). "I LIKE THIS ONE BEST, BUT IT'S RATHER EXPENSIVE." _Expert Salesman._ "THEN I SHOULD HAVE IT. AFTER ALL, THE GUV'NOR PAYS!"] * * * * * "POTASH AND PERLMUTTER." If you have ever been to an American commercial drama, you will know the opening scene of this one before the curtain goes up. The business interior; the typewriter on the left; the head of the firm opening cryptic correspondence and dictating unintelligible answers; spasmodic incursions of cocksure buyers and bagmen; a prevailing air of smartness, of hustle, of get-on-or-get-out. In _The Melting Pot_ Mr. ZANGWILL has been creating a diversion with an Hebraic theme, his hero being a refugee from Kieff, where his family had perished in a pogrom. This new variation has occurred--independently, no doubt--to the author of _Potash and Perlmutter_, who has grafted it (including the detail of the immigrant from Kieff) on the old commercial stock, and done very well indeed with his blend.