AM FARREN--a very welcome
return--was perfect as ever in a good grumpy part. It was strange
to see the gentle Miss STELLA CAMPBELL playing the unsympathetic
character of a jealous and rather cruel woman; but she took to it
quite kindly. Mr. LANCE LISTER, as the boy _Geoffrey_, who kept
intervening in the most sportsmanlike way on the weaker side and
adjusting some very awkward complications with the gayest and most
resolute tact, was extraordinarily good. Admirable, too, were Miss
JOYCE CAREY as a shop-girl friend of _Sheila's_ boarding-house period,
and Mr. HENRY OSCAR as her "fate," whose line was shirts. The scene in
which these two encounter the superior relatives of _Sheila's_ husband
abounded in good fun, kept well within the limits of comedy. It was
a pure joy to hear _Miss Hooker's_ garrulous efforts to carry off the
situation with aggressive gentility; but even more fascinating was the
abashed silence of her young man, broken only when he blurted out the
word "shirts," and gave the show away.

The whole cast was excellent, and Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER must be
felicitated on a very clever production. But it is to author and
heroine that I beg to offer the best of my gratitude for a most
refreshing evening.

O.S.

* * * * *

"You will find that the men most likely to get off the note
are those who never really got on to it."--_Musical Times_.

The real question is how those who never got on to the note contrive
to get off it.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother_ (_reading paper_). "I SEE A BAKER'S BEEN FINED
TEN POUNDS FOR SELLING BREAD LESS THAN TWELVE HOURS OLD."

_Alan_ (_who now goes to school by train_--_joining in_). "OH, THINK!
AND HE MIGHT HAVE PULLED THE CORD AND STOPPED THE TRAIN _TWICE_ FOR
THAT!"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

When I first read the title of _Secret Bread_ (HEINEMANN) my idea
was--well, what would anyone naturally think but that here was a
romance of food-hoarding, a tale of running the potato blockade and
the final discovery of a hidden cellar full of fresh rolls? But of
course I was quite wrong. The name has nothing to do with food, other
than mental; it stands for the sustaining idea (whatever it is)
that each one of us keeps locked in his heart as the motive of his
existence. With _Ishmael Ruan_, the hero of Miss F. TENNYSO