sang pour assouvir la soif meurtriere de l'epileptique.
RISPERE egorgea tout le monde, a tort et a travers, une veritable
tuerie. On le prit les mains rouges, la bouche blanche d'ecume.
C'etait la vraie epilepsie d'ESQUIROL.

Quant a POPPOT personne n'a soupconne sa complicite dans ce crime
gigantesque. Lui et JANE se soulent paisiblement du matin an soir
devant le buffet du Petrolium, en amis. Ils deviennent tous les jours
plus pauvres, plus paresseux, et plus poivres. Ainsi c'est facile de
prevoir leur fin:--

L'hopital, trente pages de delire alcooelique, et la fosse commune.

_Note de l'Auteur_.--C'est mon intention irrevocable de finir ma
vingtaine de romans sur la famille OGWASH, et je compte avec plasir
offrir les dix-neuf a suivre a mon ami estime, _Ponche_.

* * * * *

LISTENING TO THE GENTLE KOOEN.

_Maid Marian_ is "a Comic Opera in Three Acts," at least so I gather
from the title-page of the book and from the programme of the Prince
of Wales's Theatre; though where the comicality comes in, except
occasionally with Mr. MONKHOUSE, it would require _Sam Weller's_ "pair
o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power"
to detect. Mr. LE HAY, too, has nothing like the opportunity which was
given him in _Prince Bulbo_. Now, when in a so-called Comic Opera your
two principal low comedians have very little to do, say, or sing, and
when that little is not of a particularly side-splitting character,
and when the plot is not replete with comic situations, such a work
must depend for its success on the freshness of its melodies, on
the popularity of its _artistes_, and on the excellence of its
_mise-en-scene_.

[Illustration: Libretto by Smith. As he appears in Act III.,
"hammering at it."]

As to the last of these essentials, if, perhaps, it is not so
brilliantly placed on the stage as some other shows have been, yet
there is plenty of Harrisian movement, due always to the devices in
stage-management of CHARLES of that ilk, who certainly knows how to
keep the Chorus moving and the game alive generally.

The yet existing admirers of the once enormously popular composer,
OFFENBACH, among whom I certainly include myself, will be much
gratified by the delicately introduced reminiscences of the work of
that master of _opera bouffe_ which occasionally crop up during the
performance of _Maid Marian_. If it be permissible for great Masters
to repeat themselves, as n