_Mary._ "OH, 'E DID, DID 'E? 'AD 'E RED 'AIR? I'LL LARN 'M TO GO 'AMMERIN' AT DECENT PEOPLE'S DOOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT JUST BECAUSE I WOULDN'T GO TO THE PICTURES WITH 'IM LAST FRIDAY. IMPERENCE!"] * * * * * From the directions on an omnibus ticket:-- "Passengers are requested not to stand on top of the Bus back seats for smoking." This is a thing we never do. * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "MARY ROSE." OF course nobody could possibly suspect Sir JAMES BARRIE of plagiarising (save from himself), yet it will explain something of the atmosphere of _Mary Rose_ if I say that it is a story with such a theme as that admirable ghostmonger, the Provost of Eton, would whole-heartedly approve--thrilling, sinister, inconclusive--with (shall I say?) just a dash of Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in his other-worldly mood to bring it well into the movement. Naturally the variations are sheer BARRIE and of the most adroit. [Illustration: THE BOY WHO WOULD GROW UP FASTER THAN HIS MOTHER. _Mary Rose_ . . . MISS FAY COMPTON. _Harry_ . . . . MR. ROBERT LORAINE.] _Mary Rose_ is in fact a girl who couldn't grow up, because whenever she visited a little mystery island in the Outer Hebrides "they" who lived in a "lovely, lovely, lovely" vague world beyond these voices would call her vaguely (to Mr. NORMAN O'NEILL'S charming music), and she would as vaguely return with no memory of what had passed and no change in her physical condition. This didn't matter so much when, as a mere child, she disappeared for thirty days; but when, mother of an incomparable heir of two, she was rapt away in the middle of a picnic for twenty-five years, and returned to find a husband, mother and father inexplicably old and changed, and dreadfully silent about her babe--well, you see for yourself how hopeless everything was. As if there were not enough real tragedy in the world and it were necessary to invent! I don't think it fair to tell you any more. You shouldn't suffer these thrills at second-hand. But I can say that, in spite of making it a point of professional honour to try to keep a warm spine and check the unbidden tear from trickling down my nose (which makes you look such an ass before a cynical colleague during the intervals), I was beaten in both attempts. The "effects" were astonishingly well contrived by both author and producer (Mr. HOLMAN CLARK). You were not let down at the supreme moment by a hurried shuffle of dimly seen forms or the click of an electrician's gear suggesting too solid flesh. The house was in a queer way stunned by the poignancy of the last scene between the young ghost-mother and the long-sought unrecognised son, and had to shake itself before it could reward with due applause the fine playing of as perfect a cast as I have seen for a long time. There's no manner of doubt that Sir JAMES "got it over" (as they say) all right.