I tried them with my Manual; it was but little good; For not one word of their replies I ever understood. They never said the sentences that _should_ have followed next: I found it quite impossible to keep them to the text! Besides, unblushing reference to a Conversation-Book Imparts to social intercourse an artificial look. So I let the beggars have their way. 'Twas everywhere the same; I led the proper openings--they _wouldn't_ play the game. Now I've pitched the Manual away that got me in this mess, And in ingenious pantomime my wishes I express. They take me for an idiot mute, an error I deplore: But still--_I'm better understood than e'er I was before!_ * * * * * A PRODUCT OF THE SILLY SEASON. DEAR MR. PUNCH, London at the end of August is not particularly inviting, save in one respect--it is negatively pleasant to find that _Matinées_ are all but suspended. I should say quite, were it not that the Shaftesbury Theatre on the 27th opened its doors at a quarter to three o'clock in the afternoon, for the performance of _The Violin Makers_, an adaptation of _Le Luthier de Crémone_, and the production of a "new and original Comedy sketch," in two Acts, called _The Deacon_, by HENRY ARTHUR JONES. The first piece I had already seen at the Bushey Theatre, with Professor HERKOMER, R.A., in the principal character. I had now an opportunity of comparing the Artist-Actor with the Manager-Actor, and must confess that I liked the former better than the latter. Mr. WILLARD as _Filippo_, was Mr. WILLARD, but Professor HERKOMER, shaved for the occasion, seemed to be anyone other than Professor HERKOMER. The mounting of the piece at Bushey was also greatly to be preferred to the _mise-en-scène_ in Shaftesbury Avenue, and as the accomplished Artist-Actor had also supplied some exceedingly touching music to his version of FRANÇOIS COPPEE's Poetical Play, which was wanting two hundred yards from Piccadilly Circus, I was altogether better pleased with the entertainment served up with _sauce à la Herkomer_. I may be wrong in preferring the amateur to the professional, or I may be right--after all, it is merely a matter of opinion.