s morning
meal, "I saw such a stunning play last night. Don't mind my weed, eh? I
am not much of a playgoer myself, you know. You haven't got any Curacoa
I suppose? Oh, yes, Kirsch will do, thank you. Especially here, they
speak so quick I can't follow 'em. FRANCONI'S more my line. But I tell
you what, the piece last night was a fizzer, and no mistake; and a
fellow sung no end of a good song in it," continued the dramatic
enthusiast, jingling half-a-dozen sovereigns in his two hands in time to
the tune he hummed, "Chink chink, chink chink, toodle um tum ti, chink
chink, chink chink, toodle um tum ti. Clipping, by Jove; all about women
not caring for love, or hops, and that kind of thing, but only for tin.
How it must have riled them. I believe it's quite true, and yet--I don't
know either. Some of one sort, and some of another, I suppose."

"Oh, I can't tell you the plot. It's a young fellow who goes away from
home, the reprobate, and falls into what is called "bad company", and
one of the bad company pretends to be spooney on him, and it's all very
jolly at first. He swells about and spends a tremendous lot of tin, in
the same way that TOM HILTON and fellows of that sort are doing now.
Horses, and dinners, and champagne, and jewellery; nothing is too good
for him. And then, to mend matters, he takes to play, and of course is
extensively legged by others of the bad company, and is ruined, in
short. He tries to hold on by borrowing of old _Shixty-per-Shent_, just
like fellows we know in town; and he comes to grief, and the mercenary
female cuts him when she finds it out; and it's very affecting.
Everybody cried all round the house; and, upon my word, I couldn't help
doing a little in that way myself. Now, mind you go and see it. I intend
to go every night till I know that song by heart." And he went away,
warbling "Chink chink, chink chink," and smacking the sovereigns in his
pocket.

More difficult critics than MARTINGALE had spoken well of the last of
that chain of dramas in which _Lais_ is made the heroine, and the bad or
good side of her character is the point of interest. The Tourist,
therefore, willingly installed himself with his double-barrel in a
_fauteuil d'orchestre_, and was forced to acknowledge the admirable
constructive skill with which French dramatists ply their craft. No
wonder our practical fellow-countrymen are tempted to carry off such
capital ready-made articles, instead of being at the pains of ha