But there were plenty of isolated good things, such as Mr. O.B. CLARENCE'S really excellent Mayor, puzzled, pompous, eagle-pecked. Miss FLORENCE IVOR, the eagle in question, gave a shrewd and shrewish portrait of a wife gey ill to live with. Mr. REGINALD BACH'S very entertaining imaginary portrait of a faithful boy scout was a stroke of genius, his "call of the wild" being by far the best whim of the evening. Miss EVA LEONARD-BOYNE as _Ninetta_, the orphan, did her little job tenderly and prettily, but I couldn't believe in _Ninetta_ in that galley, and I doubt if she did. Mr. GORDON ASH was the debonair hero. I do most solemnly entreat him to consider the example of some of the elders in his profession who have adopted a laugh as their principal bit of business. It may turn into a millstone. Was he not laughing the same laugh on this very stage in a very different part three days ago? He was. If he got a month, laugh-barred, he would profit by the sentence. For he has jolly good stuff in him. T. [Illustration: BORROWED PLUMES IN A MAYOR'S NEST. _Alderman Twentyman_ . Mr. O.B. CLARENCE. _Felix Delany_ . . . . Mr. GORDON ASH.] * * * * * MORE COMMANDEERING. From a report of the PRIME MINISTER'S speech at Carnarvon:-- "There are eight million houses in this country. Let us have VICTORY GUM FACTORY, Nelson, Lancs."--_Daily Dispatch._ But surely he does not want to be known as "The Stickit Minister." * * * * * "A grocer in a London suburb complains that on Saturday he and his staff were 'run o ffthei rlegs by the extraordinary demands of customers.'"--_Westminster Gazette._ We congratulate the printer on his gallant effort to depict the situation. * * * * * "Wanted, Cook Generals, House Parlourmaids; fiends might suit."--_Irish Paper._ Discussion of the eternal servant problem is apt to be one-sided; it was quite time that we heard from the _advocatus diaboli_. * * * * * TO STEPHEN LEACOCK (_Professor of Political Economy at McGill University, Montreal, and author of "Further Foolishness" and other notable works of humour_). The life that is flagrantly double, Conflicting in conduct and aim, Is seldom untainted by trouble And commonly closes in shame; But no such anxieties pester Your dual existence, which links The functions of don and of jester-- High thought and high jinks. Your earliest venture perhaps is Unique in the rapture intense Displayed in these riotous Lapses From all that could savour of sense, Recalling the "goaks" and the gladness Of one whom we elders adored-- The methodical midsummer madness Of ARTEMUS WARD.