l easily guess that a comedy (or farce) in which a woman is
reduced to advertising in the Press for a husband belongs to the
ante-bellum era, before the glad eye of the flapper became a permanent
feature of the landscape. Indeed Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT'S play might
belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write
those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the
servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that
_Mabel Vere_ (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS
COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been
assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of _fiances_. I dare not
think how the theme might have been treated in French hands, but Mr.
HARCOURT is very firm about the proprieties. My only fear was that the
gallery might mistake his rather second-rate people for gentlefolk.
In what kind of club, I wonder, do members reply to matrimonial
advertisements and make bets about the result of their applications?
I should be sorry to think that anybody attributes such conduct to the
_habitues_ of the Athenaeum.

[Illustration: THE DISCOMFITURE OF A KITCHEN LOTHARIO.

_Captain Corkoran_ ......... MR. MALCOLM CHERRY.
_Adams_ (_a butler_) ....... MR. ERNEST HENDRIE.
_Mabel Vere_ ............... MISS GLADYS COOPER.]

The types that came to inspect _Mabel Vere_ were sufficiently varied.
There was a masterful Colonial (finally ejected by a lady-friend, who
performed a jujitsu feat which required a very palpable collusion
on his part); a butler; an Army Officer (with a reputation for
exploring); a gay naval thruster, and an old gentleman who ought
to have known better. To most of them she opposed an air of
virgin superciliousness very disappointing to their justifiable
anticipations; but the butler promised copy, and she accepted an
invitation to tea in his kitchen. This scene furnished some very
excellent and natural fun, and there was really no need to introduce,
and exploit over and over again, the hallowed device of a trip-mat,
that last resort of the bankrupt farceur. The necessary complications
ensued with the unexpected arrival of the master (one of the
candidates for the lady's hand, I need not say), who makes sudden
demand for an early dinner, a thing impossible to execute with the
cook in a fit of hysterics induced by jealousy of the lady who had
supplanted her in the butler's perfidious affections.

In the third Act we return to