MR. KEMPTON. Oh, I say, you can give her a stone and a beatin' any day, give you my word you can. She doesn't put anythin' like the go into it you do. [_MISS S. accepts this tribute with complacency._ MRS. FLITT. A skirt-dance will be the very thing. It's sure to please the people we shall bring over for it--and of course they'll be in the front rows. Yes, I must put _that_ down. We ought to have a song next. Mrs. Tuberose, you promised to come and sing for us--you will, won't you? MRS. TUBEROSE. Delighted! I rather thought of doing a dear little song Stephan Otis has just brought out. It's called "_Forbidden Fruit_," and he wrote it expressly for me. It goes like this. [_She sits down at the piano, and sings, with infinite expression and tenderness._ "Only the moon espies our bliss, Through the conscious clusters of clematis, Shedding star-sweet showers. To-morrow the world will have gone amiss-- Now I gaze in your eyes, love, I thrill to your kiss-- So let us remember naught but this: That To-night is ours! Yes, this passionate, perilous, exquisite night-- Is Ours!" SEVERAL VOICES. Charmin'.... Otis puts so much real feeling into all his songs ... quite a little gem! &c., &c. LADY DAMP. I should have thought myself that it was rather advanced--for an East-End audience-- MRS. TUBEROSE (_nettled_). Really, dear Lady Dampier, if people see nothing to object in it _here_, I don't see why they should be more particular at the East-End! MRS. FLITT. Oh, no,--and as if it matters what the _words_ are in the song. I daresay if one heard _their_ songs----Now we want another song--something as different as possible. MR. GARDINIER. Heard a capital song at the "Pav." the other night--something about a Cock-eyed Kipper. Just suit my voice. I could easily get the words and music, and do that for you--if you like. SEVERAL VOICES. A Cock-eyed Kipper! It sounds too killing! Oh, we _must_ have that! LADY DAMP. Might I ask what kind of creature a--a "Cock-eyed Kipper" may be? MR. GARD. Oh, well, I suppose it's a sort of a dried herring--with a squint, don't you know. LADY DAMP. I see no humour in making light of a personal deformity, I must say. MR. GARD. Oh, don't you? _They_ will--it'll go with a scream there! MISS DIOVA ROSE. Yes, poor dears--and we mustn't mind being just a little vulgar for once--to cheer them up. LADY HONOR. I have been to the Pavilion and the Tivoli myself, and I heard nothing to object to. I know I was much more amused than I ever am at theatres--_they_ bore me to death. MR. BAGOTRIX. We might finish up with _Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks_, you know. Some of you can be the figures, and I'll come on in a bonnet and shawl as _Mrs. Jarley_, and wind you up and describe you. I've done it at lots of places in the country; brought in personal allusions and all that sort of thing, and made everybody roar.