such a splendid
rendering of the part too much for their intellectual capacity, were
seized with a laughter profane, if smothered, whenever the talented
captain made his appearance, giving the rest of the company (who could
see them shaking behind their fans) to understand that they at least
were "not for Joe,"--that is, Captain Cobbett's Joe. But the majority
very properly took no notice of these Philistines, and indeed rebuked
them by maintaining an undisturbed gravity to the very end.

Sir Peter (Mr. Ryde) was most sumptuously arrayed. Nothing could exceed
the magnificence of his attire. Upon an amateur stage, startling
habiliments copied from a remote period are always attractive, and Mr.
Ryde did all he knew in this line, giving even to the ordinary Sir Peter
of our old-fashioned knowledge certain garments in vogue quite a century
before he could possibly have been born. This gave a charming wildness
to his character, a devil-may-care sort of an air, that exactly suited
his gay and festive mood. After all, why should Sir Peter be old and
heavy? why indeed?

The effect was altogether charming. That there were a few disagreeable
people who said they would have liked to know what he was _at_ (_such_ a
phrase, you know!), what he _meant_, in fact, and who declared that, as
a mere simple matter of choice, they liked to hear a word now and again
from an actor, goes without telling. There are troublesome people in
every grade of society,--gnats that _will_ sting. Silence is golden, as
all the world knows; and Mr. Ryde is of it: so of course he forgot his
part whenever he could, and left out all the rest!

This he did with a systematic carefulness very praiseworthy in so young
a man.

On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an
unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to whether it
was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame for their obtuseness.
There certainly are scenes in this admirable comedy not provocative of
laughter; but such was the bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined
in with the Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight
through the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her
cheeks.

She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun, who was quite as
bad as she, said, "_no wonder_."

Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses have
disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light, and the
tableaux; w