uld go and hear some music. He said he thought a
little music would soothe and ennoble him--make him feel more like a
Christian than he did at that precise moment.

We were near St. James' Hall, so we went in there.

The hall was densely crowded, and we had great difficulty in forcing our
way to our seats. We reached them at length, and then turned our eyes
toward the orchestra.

"The marvelous boy pianist--only ten years old!" was giving a recital.

Then our friend rose and said he thought he would give it up and go
home.

We asked him if he would like to try any other place of amusement, but
he said "No." He said that when you came to think of it, it seemed a
waste of money for a man with eleven children of his own to go about to
places of entertainment nowadays.

THE COMIC LOVERS.

Oh, they are funny! The comic lovers' mission in life is to serve as
a sort of "relief" to the misery caused the audience by the other
characters in the play; and all that is wanted now is something that
will be a relief to the comic lovers.

They have nothing to do with the play, but they come on immediately
after anything very sad has happened and make love. This is why we watch
sad scenes on the stage with such patience. We are not eager for them
to be got over. Maybe they are very uninteresting scenes, as well as sad
ones, and they make us yawn; but we have no desire to see them hurried
through. The longer they take the better pleased we are: we know that
when they are finished the comic lovers will come on.

They are always very rude to each other, the comic lovers. Everybody is
more or less rude and insulting to every body else on the stage; they
call it repartee there! We tried the effect of a little stage "repartee"
once upon some people in real life, and we wished we hadn't afterward.
It was too subtle for them. They summoned us before a magistrate for
"using language calculated to cause a breach of the peace." We were
fined 2 pounds and costs!

They are more lenient to "wit and humor" on the stage, and know how
to encourage the art of vituperation. But the comic lovers carry the
practice almost to excess. They are more than rude--they are abusive.
They insult each other from morning to night. What their married life
will be like we shudder to think!

In the various slanging matches and bullyragging competitions which form
their courtship it is always the maiden that is most successful.
Against her merry flow o