his essentially miniature art to these vasty
proportions. Physically and mentally he is dwarfed, and his effects
hardly ever get beyond the orchestra. These new halls, with their
circles, and upper circles, and third circles, and Louis XV Salons and
Palm Courts, have been builded over the bones of old English humour.
They are good for nothing except ballet, one-act plays with large
effects, and tabloid grand opera. But apparently the public like them,
for the old halls are going. The Tivoli site is to bear a Y.M.C.A. home,
and the merriment of the Strand will be still further frowned upon.

There is always an acrobat turn in the Oxford bill, and always a cheery
cross-talk item. The old combination of knockabouts or of swell and
clown has for the most part disappeared; the Poluskis, The Terry Twins,
and Dale and O'Malley are perhaps the last survivors. The modern idea is
the foolish fellow and the dainty lady, who are not, I think, so
attractive as the old style. Personally, I am always drawn to a hall
where Dale and O'Malley are billed. "The somewhat different comedians"
is their own description of themselves, and the wonder is that they
should have worked so long in partnership and yet succeeded in remaining
"somewhat different." But each has so welded his mood to the other that
their joint humour is, as it were, a bond as spiritually indissoluble as
matrimony. You cannot conceive either Mr. Dale or Mr. O'Malley working
alone or with any other partner. I have heard them crack the same quips
and tell the same stories for the last five years, yet they always get
the same big laugh and the same large "hand." That is a delightful trait
about the music-hall--the _entente_ existing between the performer and
audience. The favourites seem to be _en rapport_ even while waiting in
the wings, and the flashing of their number in the electric frame is the
signal for a hand of welcome and--in the outer halls--whistles and
cries. The atmosphere becomes electric with good-fellowship. It is, as
Harry Lauder used to sing, "just like being at home." It must be
splendid to be greeted in that manner every night of your life and--if
you are working two or three halls--five times every night; to know that
some one wants you, that some one whom you have never seen before loves
you and is ready to pay good money away in order to watch you play the
fool or be yourself. There they are, crowds of people with whom you
haven't the slightest acquaint