Some mild interest has been displayed by the public in a camp which has been established by three subalterns in the roadway at the corner of Charing Cross and Northumberland Avenue. It is a small and quite inconspicuous affair, consisting merely of an army pattern bell-tent, a camp fire and a few deck chairs. Our representative recently visited the occupants to ascertain the reason for their presence. After hastily declining an offer of a glass of E.F.C. port, smuggled over from France, he inquired with polite interest whether his hosts contemplated a lengthy stay. They replied that they did. They were waiting for their demobilisation gratuities. The locality, they added, was a quiet one, where advancing old age could be met in comfortable meditation. Also the offices of Messrs. Cox, Box & Co., the Regimental Agents, were in convenient proximity, and the latest news of the gratuities could be obtained with a minimum of trouble. Up to the present the police have not interfered with them, apparently taking them for workmen employed in repairing the roadway. * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "KISSING TIME." For an infrequent worshipper at the shrine of Musical Comedy the atmosphere of a first night at a new, or renascent, theatre is perhaps rather too heady. There are so many potent vintages set on the board; so many connoisseurs who will offer to tell you beforehand of the merits of their favourite brands. I confess, to my shame, that when an actor with whose gifts I am unfamiliar is received on his entrance with a storm of applause, I am not prejudiced, as I ought to be, in his favour. On the contrary I follow his performance the more judicially, and if I cannot find that it corresponds to his apparent reputation I am apt (wrongly again) to conclude that the fault lies with him and not with myself. [Illustration: THE OLD GAIETY IN A NEW HOME. MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH AND MR. LESLIE HENSON AT THE WINTER GARDEN THEATRE.] But in the case of _Kissing Time_, after a rather dull First Act, during which I kept telling myself that I was not suffering from senile decay, I had to admit that the gods were in a great measure justified of their elect. For one thing the authors, taking a bold and original line (from the French), had produced a coherent plot; and both dialogue and lyrics were above what I understand to be the average in this kind. One expects, of course, a little Cockney licence--"pyjamas" rhymed with "Palmer's," and so on--and a certain amount of popular banality, as in the song, "Some Day" (rapturously approved); but there were excellent verses on the text, "A woman has no mercy on a man," and, I doubt not, much other good stuff which I missed because Mr. IVAN CARYLL, who conducted (and was probably thinking more of his own pleasant music than somebody else's words), did not make enough allowance for my slowness in the up-take of patter.