Even before the era of Prohibition (there were cocktails in this play) strange things must have happened in "God's own country" under the banner of the Bird of Freedom. But never so strange as the effects you get on the stage when very English people play at being Americans. You have to be rather young and unsophisticated if such phrases as "He's putting it over on us," or "I'm not going to stand for that," generously peppered about the dialogue and recited in the purest of English accents, can persuade you to believe that you are getting the real local stuff. At the same time you accept cheerfully the most farcical conditions on the vague assumption that all things may be possible over there. So, when _John W. Brook_, of Fifth Avenue, millionaire, engaged the services of _Alexander Y. Hedge_, plenipotentiary representative of an Efficiency Company, to introduce economic reforms into his motherless household during his temporary absence, we regarded it as a most reasonable experiment. And for a time it made excellent fun. But after a while it began to wear thin for lack of fresh stimulus, and by the end of the Second Act there was a general feeling in the audience that something would have to be done about it. The same thought seems to have occurred to Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT, the author, and he started, a little late in the day, to introduce an element of sex-romance into what so far had been an absolutely bloodless proposition. But at first it was with sinister intent that _Brook's_ elder daughter made advances to _Alexander Y. Hedge_. As soon as she could induce this monster of inhumanity to become a prey to her charm she would repulse him with scorn, and then he would have to go. The children's allowances having been cut off on the ground that they did nothing to earn them, she offered her services as his paid secretary. "Propinquity" did its work and she was soon in a position to offer him the privilege of an experimental kiss, thus incidentally justifying the dreadful title of the play. The first, delivered on the cheek, was a wash-out; but the second, pressed home on the lips, had the desired effect. Then she turned and rent him, telling him exactly what she thought of his treatment of the family. He replied with an eloquent philippic directed at the vices of a bloated aristocracy (this was the ante-bellum age, before things had been made so much safer for democracy). Almost before the applause of the gallery had died down, the father burst upon the scene, furious at the report that this hired commercial had been making love to his daughter.