_Emily_
urges _Dick Trotter_, the bachelor of the flat (as soon as he returns
from his own night out), to conduct her to the alleged invalid. He
consents, but not without protest, for he is a _roue_ of the old school
and cannot approve of these platonic adventures; besides, he is about to
_se ranger_ by marriage with somebody else and (a matter of detail, but
most inconvenient) is under contract to take her to Brighton for the
day.

A fairly preposterous start, you will say; yet the delightful
naturalness which Miss GLADYS COOPER and Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY bring to
the situation gives it almost an air of possibility. But, once we are at
Ostend, and have been introduced to _Trotter's_ incredibly inappropriate
fiancee (she is a niece of the same aunt and has followed under
protection of a tame escort), we are prepared to launch freely and
fearlessly into the rough and tumble of farce.

It is in vain that Miss GLADYS COOPER, over her _petit dejeuner_,
preserves a natural demeanour, even to the point of talking with her
mouth full; the light humour of the First Act declines to the verge of
buffoonery. The devastating confusions which ensue in the matter of
identity and relationship (in our author's Ostend you assume, till
corrected, that all couples are married); the intervention of the local
gendarmerie, headed by a British detective; the arrest of half the party
(including the aunt, arrived in perfect health and ignorance _en route_
for England) on a nameless charge in connection with _Emily's_ suspected
abduction--all this is in the best Criterion manner.

[Illustration: EMILY GIVES DICK THE GLADYS EYE.

_Richard Trotter_ Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY.
_Emily Delmar_ Miss GLADYS COOPER.]

In the Third Act, though we never recover the rapture of the First, the
humour touches a higher level; but what it gains in _finesse_ it loses
in spontaneity. Here we meet _Emily's_ father, returned from lecturing
in the States on social ethics. The scandal of his daughter's conduct
leaves him indifferent, for a long and varied experience of the morals
of many lands, in the course of which he has married as many as eighteen
wives, having made a point of adopting for the time being the
system--polygamous or other--of the country in which he happens to find
himself, has taught him that nothing is right or wrong except as local
opinion makes it so. We are allowed to gather that heredity may have had
some influence in the moulding of _Emi