mutter_, with the quicker brains, contemptuous but devoted, who throws
all the blame where it is due, yet stands by to share the punishment.

I found their language and accent rather hard to follow, a difficulty not
shared by the strong Jewish element in an audience that was extremely quick
to appreciate the humour that kept one always on the alert. It is
profitless to ask how much of the fun was due to the things said and how
much to the manner of saying them. The essential matter is that actors and
author between them gave us an unusually good time, and I am much obliged
to them.

Apart from the leading characters, the _Mrs. Potash_ of Miss MATILDA
COTTRELLY was a most delightful study, and the breezy methods of Mr.
CHARLES DICKSON as a buyer and Mr. EZRA MATTHEWS as a salesman were
effective of their kind.

The plot, as usual in such plays, was rather elementary. So, too, with the
love interest; but the right kind of sentiment was not wanting in the very
human characters of _Potash_ and _Perlmutter_. For a rare moment or two
there was a break in our laughter and tears were not far away.

O. S.

* * * * *

THE POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.

My nephew Rupert has been spending part of his Easter holidays with me.
There is nothing like a boy of fifteen for adding an atmosphere to a
house--in which term I include a garden. It is a special atmosphere, hard
to define, but quite unmistakable when you have once lived in it. It is
compounded of football, cricket, hockey--these are not actual, but
conversational--of visits to the stables, romps with dogs in a library,
tousled hair, muddy trousers, a certain contempt for time, the loan of my
collar-stud, an insatiable desire to look through the back volumes of
_Punch_, long rides on a bicycle and an irresistible tendency of ink to the
fingers, presumably caused by the terrible duty of writing letters to
parents. There may be other ingredients, but these are the chief. I am
bound to add that he is a very amiable boy, with a strong sense of humour,
and that he associates on very friendly terms with the little girls, his
cousins, who form the majority of this household, it being quite understood
that, for the time, they become boys while he remains what he is.

The other morning Rupert evidently had something on his mind. He made
various half-hearted and thoroughly unsuccessful efforts to leave the room,
twiddled his cap in his hands, tripped over