D DEPUTATION RECEIVED BY WHIP."

_Daily News and Leader._

* * * * *

_The Daily News_, in describing an adventure between the CROWN PRINCE of
Germany (in a motor) and a peasant of Saarbruecken, ventures (with a
knowledge of the Saarbruecken dialect which we ourselves cannot claim) to
give the peasant's actual words:--

"'Ain't 'eard nowt,' said the peasant; 'the lane be narrow like.
You must just wait till I be druv ahead.'"

Its likeness to the Loamshire dialect of England will interest the
philologist.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"AN INDIAN SUMMER."

We plunged into the action quickly enough. A breakfast-gong--a sip of
coffee--a bite of toast--and _Nigel Parry_ locks up his morning's
love-correspondence; _Helen_, his wife, breaks open the drawer and
peruses the damning letter; _Nigel_ returns and catches her red-handed.
After this we took a long breath and lingered over the moral aspect of
the situation. Indeed, during the next ten years nothing occurred except
the separation of the couple; the reported decease of the other woman
(whom we never saw, dead or alive), and the marriage of the boy _Parry_
with an actress bearing the ascetic name of _Ursula_. We now left the
old trail in pursuit of this red herring; and for the rest of the play,
up to the last moment, our attention was concentrated on the attitude of
the elder heroine to her daughter-in-law, to whom she had taken a
profound dislike at sight.

But something had to happen if the author was to bring about a
reconciliation of the original pair and so justify the symbolic title of
her play. Thinking it out, she seems to have recalled that it is
customary in these cases to let an accident occur to some junior member
of the family, over whose prostrate body the old ones may kiss again
with tears. Accordingly, no sooner had mention been made, quite
arbitrarily, of an automatic pistol, alleged to be unloaded, than old
stagers knew by instinct that _Ursula_ would shoot herself
inadvertently. This occurred with such promptitude that even the author
recognised that we should not be satisfied with so ingenuous an episode.
Complications had therefore to be devised at all costs. Young _Parry_
must be kept in ignorance of the fact that the episode was due to his
stupidity in leaving the weapon loaded. So _Ursula_ invents a story to
show that the wound in her thigh was due to a fall downstairs. It is