It is a considerable tribute to both author and adapter (the late JOHN RAPHAEL) that their work should, at the height of the barking season, hold an audience silent and apparently enthralled, in spite of the handicap that, in order to make the story in any degree intelligible, much time had to be given to more or less tedious explanations. I will not pretend that the motives of the characters were clear or that (for me) the phantasy quite passed the test of being translated from the medium of the written word into that of canvas, gauze and costumed players, with those scufflings of dim figures in the semi-darkness and that furtive and by no means noiseless zeal of scene-shifters; or, again, that I was much attracted by a picture of the life after death, in which opera-going (please _cf._ Mr. VALE OWEN) figured so prominently. Indeed I think that the play would be better if it ended with the death of the dreamers and did not attempt that hazardous last passage. But certainly there were quite admirable tableaux and some very intelligent individual playing--in contrast with the team-work of (particularly) the First Act, which was ragged and amateurish. Mr. BASIL RATHBONE'S _Peter_ was an effective study, avoiding Scylla of the commonplace and Charybdis of the mawkish--no mean feat. A young man with a future, I dare hazard; with a gift of clear utterance, and sensibility and a useful figure. It is a good deal to say that Miss CONSTANCE COLLIER so contrived her _Duchess of Towers_ as to make us understand _Peter's_ worship. Miss JESSIE BATEMAN'S _Mrs. Deane_ seemed to me an exceedingly competent piece of work, and Mr. GILBERT HARE thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful of _Colonel Ibbetson's_ wickedness, and made us share his appreciation. And you couldn't accuse him of over-playing, though he certainly looked too bad to be true. Mr. WILLIAM BURCHILL'S little sketch of an old French officer was almost too poignant. Why the landlord of the _Tete Noir_ was got up to resemble Mr. WILL EVANS so closely is a deep matter I could not fathom, and, if ever I kill my uncle, may Fate send me a less rhetorical chaplain than Mr. CYRIL SWORDER! T. * * * * * [Illustration: THE INTRUDER.] * * * * * THE ORDER OF THE B.S.O.