Mr. BOUCICAULT might properly be called the author of the elementary Drama. Not because his plays, like elementary lessons in French, are peculiarly aggravating to the well-regulated mind, but because of his fondness for employing one of the elements of nature--fire, water, or golden hair--in the production of the sensation which invariably takes place in the fourth or fifth act of each of his popular dramas. In the _Streets of New-York_, he made a hit by firing a building at the spectacularly disposed audience. In _Formosa_, he gave us a boat-race; and in _Lost at Sea_, now running at WALLACK'S, he has renewed his former fondness for playing with fire. The following condensed version of this play is offered to the readers of PUNCHINELLO, with the assurance that, though it may be a little more coherent than the unabridged edition, it is a faithful picture of the sort of thing that Mr. BOUCICAULT, aided and abetted by Mr. WALLACK, thinks proper to offer to the public. * * * * * LOST AT SEA. ACT I. _Scene_ 1. _Enter Virtuous Banker_. "I have embezzled WALTER CORAM'S money, and he is coming from India to claim it. I am a ruined man." _Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER CORAM is lost at sea, and we will keep the money." _Virtuous Banker_. "Thank heaven! I am not found out, and can remain an honest man as usual." _Scene_ 2. _Enter Comic Villain_. "I am just released from prison and must soon meet my wife." (_Swears and smashes in his hat_.) _Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER, CORAM is lost at sea. Personate him, draw his money, and share it with me." _Comic Villain_. "I will." (_Swears and smashes in his hat_.) _Scene_ 3. _Enter Miss Effie Germon_. (Aside.) "I am supposed to be a virtuous and vagabond boy. I hate to show my ankles in ragged trowsers, but I must." (_Shows them. Applause_) _Enter Daughter of Comic Villain_. "I love the unprincipled clerk; but there is a sick stranger up-stairs who pokes the fire in a way that I can hardly resist. Be firm, my heart. Shall I be untrue to my own unprincipled -----" _Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER CORAM is lost at sea, and I must leave these valuable boxes in your hands for safe-keeping." (_Leaves the boxes, and then leaves himself_.) _Enter Sick Stranger_. "I am WALTER CORAM. Those are my boxes. Somebody is personating me. Big thing on somebody. Let him go ahead." (_Curtain_.) * * * * * _Young Lady in the Audience_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON perfectly lovely?" _Accompanying Bostonian Youth_. "Yes; but you should see RISTORI in _Marie Antoinette_. There is a sweetness and light about the great tragedienne which -----" _Heavy old Party, to contiguous Young Man_. "Don't think much of this; do you? Now, in TOM PLACIDS's day----" _Contiguous and aggrieved Young Man pleads an engagement and hastily goes out_.