As to the more serious business, Mr. H. V. ESMOND seemed to behave very much as one would imagine a decent M.P. behaving in such embarrassing circumstances. He suspected his wife with all the ardour which public men on the stage always exhibit. His little turn of desperate tragedy carried conviction--almost too much conviction, as you will find--but I won't explain. Miss JESSIE WINTER, as his wife, very adroitly contrived an ambiguous effect of likely guilt but possible innocence. She more than fulfils the promise of her last performance in this theatre, but she must (may I tell her?) arrest the development of "the Fatal Caesura," that exasperating histrionic device whereby every salient phrase is broken up for no conceivable reason into two halves. In the secondary stages there is but slender hope of a cure; in the tertiary there is none. Miss DARRAGH was, as required, the vindictive widow to the life (this kind of life, you understand), and Miss HILDA BAYLEY played very charmingly the little wilful _fiancee_ who--but no, I must keep my promise. With much less evidence than the applause and generally keyed-up attitude of the Savoy audience afforded me, I could risk a psychic communication in the authentic manner of a Beverley seance. "All is dark.... It is getting light.... I see a man.... He leans eagerly to a telephone.... He thrusts something into envelopes. He goes on thrusting things into envelopes. The telephone keeps ringing.... It is.... Can it be? Yes, it _is_ a Box Office." An institution which at the Savoy should be busy for many months to come. T. * * * * * A MISNOMER. "In memory of the name of the late Dr. F. C. Batchelor it is proposed that the name of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital (Dunedin) be altered to that of the Batchelor Hospital."--_Southland Times_ (_N.Z._) * * * * * [Illustration] _Mother._ "Did you remember to pray for everybody, dear?" _Daughter._ "Well, Mummy, I prayed for you, but Jack prayed for Daddy. He's looking after him just now."] * * * * * MUSIC IN WAR TIME. The Converted Collector. (_An Order in Council prohibits the importation of all musical instruments._) In ancient, peaceful _ante-bellum_ days-- Now far remote as HANNIBAL'S or HANNO'S-- I had a weakness, possibly a craze, For buying Hun pianos. I let no patriotic sentiment My honest inclination curb or fetter; On foreign articles my cash I spent, Because I liked them better. Nor would I now proscribe Germanic Art, Their one surviving claim to lasting glory, Or bar BEETHOVEN, WAGNER, BACH, MOZART-- STRAUSS is another story. But while our enemy unshattered stands In any single theatre or sector, I take no interest in German "grands," As player or collector.