was so evidently
unfamiliar with Music Halls.

"If you are expecting to be vastly amused, Sir," _Mr. Punch_ ventured
to hint, "I am afraid you may be just a trifle disappointed."

"Disappointed?" said TIME; "not a bit of it, Sir; not a bit of it!
Isn't a Music Hall a place of entertainment? You've plenty of them
where _you_ come from, haven't you? They wouldn't be filled night
after night, as I'm given to understand they are, if they didn't
succeed in entertaining, _would_ they, now?"

_Mr. Punch_ felt a natural reluctance to betray the weak points of any
terrestrial institution.

"Oh, _our_ Music Halls? they are perfection, of course," he said. "The
entertainments there are distinguished by humour of the most refined
and intellectual order. It only struck me that they mayn't be quite
the same _here_, you know, that's all."

"We shall see, Sir, we shall see," said TIME. "I don't think I'm
particularly difficult to amuse." By this time they had entered the
dazzling hall, and, reclining on sumptuous seats, were prepared to
bestow their best attention upon the proceedings. A stout man with a
fair wig, a dyed moustache and a blue chin, occupied the stage. He was
engaged in representing a Member of the Seriocomican aristocracy with
irresistible powers of social fascination, and he wore a loose-caped
cloak over garments of closely-fitting black, which opened in front
to display a mass of crumpled white, amidst which scintillated an
enormous jewel. In his hand he held a curious black disc, with which
he beat time to a ditty, of which _Mr. Punch_ only succeeded in
catching the following refrain:--

"Oh, I 'ave sech a w'y with the loydies! All the dorlins upon me are gorn!
For they soy--'Yn't he noice! you can tell by his vice,
He's a toff and a gentleman born!'"

And here the singer suddenly caused the black disc to expand with a
faint report to a cylindrical form of head-dress, which he placed upon
one side of his head, amidst thunders of approval.

But TIME seemed rather depressed than exhilarated by this performance.

"He ought to be kicked off the stage," he muttered. "I'd do it myself
if I was younger!"

"You would make a mistake," said _Mr. Punch_; "he is just the person
that a Music Hall audience idolises as their highest ideal of a man
and gentleman--in Seriocomix."

"At least," said TIME, "you wouldn't stand such an outrageous cad as
that in any of _your_ Music Halls, I hope?"

A deeper tinge sto