aps it is wise to suppress the name) might appear
entertaining to the British householder if a cloud of tobacco smoke were
to intervene.

One of the victims made a suggestion the other day which may be worth
consideration. "Why not," he said, "add to the theatre a comfortable
kind of club-room, where a fellow might see the papers, and perhaps have
a game of bridge, or even billiards, when the curtain was up, whilst he
could keep his wife in good humour by paying her a call during the
intervals?" There is something rather touching in the idea of a little
crowd trooping in instead of bustling out when the curtain falls.

The innovation might at least have one advantage--it would force the
managers to be intelligent enough to make a really audible noise a few
minutes before the end of each _entr'acte_, so as to give people the
chance of settling down in their places before the curtain rises. Of the
many incomprehensible things connected with the theatre one of the most
puzzling is the fact that quite conscientious playgoers get caught
outside the auditorium after the curtain is up. The management is
anxious that as many people as possible should go to the bars, yet they
render it very difficult to get there; they desire that those who have
gone should return to their seats before the curtain rises, lest
friction should be caused, but all they do as a rule is to ring some
inaudible bell, and cause the attendant to whisper, as if delicately
announcing bad news, "Curtain just going up, gentlemen," and neither
curtain nor whisper gives long enough time to enable people to settle
down comfortably.

It is to be feared that this sort of club idea would not really work,
for reasons some of them quite obvious. The fact remains that
paterfamilias, still a person of some importance, is invited to
patronize the theatre, and not only asked to pay a good deal of money in
order to do so but forced to make a number of physical sacrifices; and
at the end is offered, as a rule, the kind of piece not intended to
please him, but designed for the taste of his womenfolk.

Here we see one of the reasons for the popularity of the musical comedy.
The householder is not required to trouble himself to understand a plot
which hardly exists; he may go to sleep if he pleases, or think over his
affairs in between the tit-bits without losing the thread; there are
simple tunes, which certainly aid his digestion, and broad elementary
humours that appea