The excuses for their interpolation in _Mr. Todd's Experiment_ were not marked by a very great subtlety. There was really none for the first three, which simply relieved _Mr. Todd_ of the tedious recital of the hero's disillusionments in love. The next two were introduced by way of illustrating his alleged gift of clairvoyance; and the last served frankly to fill in the interval while the rest of the company was away at dinner. The general effect of all these desultory little _Guignols_ was perhaps rather cheap, and not very complimentary to the intelligence of those of us who had outgrown a childish _penchant_ for peep-shows. [Illustration: _Willoughby Todd_ (_Mr. HOLMAN CLARK_). "BE YOUR OLD TRUE SELF. MAKE THE WOMEN ADORE YOU." _Arthur John Carrington_ (_Mr. OWEN NARES_). "YOUR ADVICE IS GOOD. I WILL NOW TAKE OFF MY BEARD AND BE OWEN NARES ONCE MORE."] _Mr. Todd's Experiment_ (for I have spoken only of Mr. HACKETT'S) was to restore a _blase_ and valetudinarian young man of thirty to a proper state of energy by recalling the memories of his past loves and so reviving in him a desire to stand well in the eyes of the sex. For this purpose he produces (1) a bunch of wood-violets to suggest (through the nose) the environment of his first passion; (2) a specially-tipped brand of cigarettes to revive (through the mouth) the sentiment of his second; and a gramophone record to recover (through the ear) the associations of his third. So well does he succeed that the hero pulls himself together, shaves off his beard, becomes our OWEN NARES again, and sallies forth, habited for conquest, to pay calls on all the three. From all the three he retires disillusioned, having found them as egoistic as himself, and in the end finds solace rather shamelessly, in the love of a devoted slave who might have been his for the taking any time in the last several years. The matter was pleasant enough, but its interest must, I think, have left us indifferent if it had not been for the diversion afforded by the playlets. While the idea was original, the presentation of it seemed to have a touch of amateurishness, though I would not go so far as to agree with the old fogey, played by Mr. FRED KERR, who pronounced the scheme to be "all Tommy rot." With the exception of one character--the devoted slave--the lightness of the dialogue, mildly cynical, was due not so much to its wit as to the absence of ponderable stuff. The easy trick, so popular with the modern playwright, of letting the audience down in the middle of a serious situation was illustrated by the hero when, being in deadly earnest, he tells every woman in turn that she is the only woman he has ever loved.