o see a four-act play, I will
go to the legitimate theatre, and see something that I can smell, too.
The influence of the vaudeville has, on the whole, been so elevating and
refining that its audiences cannot stand either the impurity or the
imbecility of the fashionable drama. But now the vaudeville itself is
beginning to decline in quality as well as quantity."

"Not toward immodesty?"

"No, not so much that. But the fine intellectual superiority of the
continuous performance is beginning to suffer contamination from the
plays where there are waits between the acts. I spoke just now of the
tramp magician, but I see him no longer at the variety houses. The comic
musician is of the rarest occurrence; during the whole season I have as
yet heard no cornet solo on a revolver or a rolling-pin. The most
dangerous acts of the trapeze have been withdrawn. The acrobats still
abound, but it is three long years since I looked upon a coon act with
real Afro-Americans in it, or saw a citizen of Cincinnati in a fur
overcoat keeping a silk hat, an open umbrella, and a small wad of paper
in the air with one hand. It is true that the conquest of the vaudeville
houses by the full-fledged drama has revived the old-fashioned stock
companies in many cases, and has so far worked for good, but it is a
doubtful advantage when compared with the loss of the direct inspiration
of the artists who created and performed their stunts."

"Delightful word!" we dreamily noted. "How did it originate?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's probably a perversion of stint, a task or part,
which is also to be found in the dictionary as stent. What does it
matter? There is the word, and there is the thing, and both are
charming. I approve of the stunt because it is always the stuntist's
own. He imagined it, he made it, and he loves it. He seems never to be
tired of it, even when it is bad, and when nobody in the house lends him
a hand with it. Of course, when it comes to that, it has to go, and he
with it. It has to go when it is good, after it has had its day, though
I don't see why it should go; for my part there are stunts I could see
endlessly over again, and not weary of them. Can you say as much of any
play?"

"Gilbert and Sullivan's operas," we suggested.

"That is true. But without the music? And even with the music, the
public won't have them any longer. I would like to see the stunt fully
developed. I should like to have that lovely wilding growth delicat