peech! Apparently he
was under the impression that there could not be too much of a good
thing--JONES for choice! It may be that since the first performance, there
has been some curtailment made in the play. To judge from appearances it
was a question of cutting--either the author the play, or the public the
theatre!

* * * * *

QUITE A NEW SPEC.--We have just received a prospectus of a Company entitled
"_The Monarch Insurance Society_." Of course, all the Crowned Heads of
Europe will be in it. We haven't yet read it, the title being sufficient
for the present. _Ca donne a penser_. Will it provide New Monarchs for old
ones? Will it give good sovereigns in exchange for bad ones? If so--where
will the profit come in?

* * * * *

FRENCH AS SHE IS "WRIT."

The _Standard's_ own Vienna Correspondent, when reporting the unpleasant
incident in the life of the Duc d'ORLEANS, told us how the Prince, on
unwittingly "accepting service," said to the astute lawyer's clerk, "Mais,
Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment." To which the clerk replied, "also in
French," says the _Standard_, "One time is as good as another." But why was
not the lawyer's clerk's French as she is spoke given as well as that of M.
le Duc? And how much more telling it would have been had M. le Duc been
served well and faithfully by a clerk like _Perker's Mr. Lowten_, fresh,
very fresh, from a carouse at the "Magpie and Stump," or even by one of
_Messrs. Dodson and Fog's_ young men who enjoyed themselves so much when "a
twigging" of the virtuous _Mr. Pickwick_.

"Mais, Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment," says the Duke, to which our _Mr.
Lowten_ would have replied in Magpie-and-Stumping French, "Eggskewsy moy,
Mossoo, le Dook, ung Tom is aussy bong qu'ung autre. Mossoo ler Dook ar
maintenong peruse ler documong; voici le copy et voila two. Bonsoir, il
faut que je l'accroche."

Whereupon he would have "hooked it," as it appears this particular lawyer's
clerk did, and was not seen again. No doubt he joined a circle of admiring
friends in the legal neighbourhood (some Magpies-and-Stumps still exist),
where, over a glass and a cigar, he recounted the merry tale of how he had
served a Duke.

* * * * *

The relation of Hypnotiser to the Hypnotised at the Aquarium may be simply
described as "GERMANE to the subject.'

* * * * *

SONG AND CHO