Her course was now quite clear. She urged and encouraged herself: "Il faut absolument que Papa vienne en permission. _Je--le--veux!_" And, that her intentions might not be thwarted, absolute secrecy must be maintained, at least in so far as the chapter relating to her terrestrial tactics was concerned; no one would oppose intercession _auprès du bon Dieu_. "Il faut m'adresser à tous les deux en même temps," pronounced Jeanne, taking a sheet of note-paper. "J'écris directement au général" (since time and space have to be allowed for in earthly negotiations, the order must be thus)--"et je prie le bon Dieu en personne." That both positions should be assailed simultaneously, operations must be begun in this quarter in the morning, at the hour of the first postal delivery. "Point de saints, ni de colonels--maintenant je comprends--l'_é-tat-ma-jor_ dans l'Armée et les saints au Paradis, c'est tout comme!" * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "PUSS IN NEW BOOTS." Five hours is a great space out of a man's life, but that was precisely the time taken by Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS to present his _Puss in New Boots_, so that I had leisure to study the book of the words, sold shamelessly to the unsuspecting (of whom I was not one), and compare the rough sketches of our three standard authors of the Lane, Messrs. COLLINS, SIMS and DIX with the version, by no manner of means final, of the comedians. A pantomime book is on the whole rather a mournfully unsubtle document. The thing is frankly not meant to be read when the blood is cool. It is the Action, Action and again Action of such hefty knock-abouts as WILL EVANS, ROBERT HALE and STANLEY LUPINO that makes the dry bones live and the old squibs crackle. And it is good fun to watch the audience at their share of authorship, setting the seal of their approval upon the happy wheeze, the well-contrived business, and blue-pencilling with their silence the wash-out or the too obscure allusion. [Illustration: DIANA OF THE LANE. _The Baroness_ ... Mr. ROBERT HALE.] The show is substantially new throughout--new songs, new scenery, new japes, new acrobatics. A new Puss, too, as well as new boots; and, without any reflection on little Miss LENNIE DEANE, who was quite an adequate Puss of pantomime, we may regret Miss RENÉE MAYER. Miss FLORENCE SMITHSON still delights the curious with her Swedish exercises in alt, and makes a very pretty lady of high degree for a pantomime marquis, who is no other than Miss MADGE TITHERADGE stepping down from the "legitimate" and bringing an air and an elocution unusual and admirable. She made her excellent speaking voice do duty in recitative for song, and the innovation is not unpleasing. If it be fair in frivolous public places to dig down to those thoughts that better lie too deep for tears, Mr. ALFRED NOYES' _A Song of England_, clear spoken by her with tenderness and spirit, is a better instrument than most.