After a time; “Maman, pour que Papa vienne en permission à qui faut-il que l’on s’adresse?”

“A son colonel, mon enfant.  Mais, ma fi-fille, tu sais...!”

Jeanne, with an air of having something to decide for herself, paid no heed, but resumed the study of her picture-book description of the French Army, murmuring:  “Un colonel—­est-ce que c’est comme un saint, ou bien est-ce que c’est comme le bon Dieu lui-même?”

Some moments of deep silence spent in intense study ended with a triumphant:  “Bon! j’y suis.”  That was exactly what she had wished to discover, the very source of power. “’Les officiers attachés à un général pour l’exécution et la transmission de ses ordres,’” re-read Jeanne, and commented, “Et tout cela s’appelle l’é-tat ma-jor du général.  Bon! c’est bien comme je le pensais; c’est le général qui est à la tête de tout.”

Her course was now quite clear.  She urged and encouraged herself:  “Il faut absolument que Papa vienne en permission. Je—­le—­veux!” And, that her intentions might not be thwarted, absolute secrecy must be maintained, at least in so far as the chapter relating to her terrestrial tactics was concerned; no one would oppose intercession auprès du bon Dieu.

“Il faut m’adresser à tous les deux en même temps,” pronounced Jeanne, taking a sheet of note-paper.  “J’écris directement au général” (since time and space have to be allowed for in earthly negotiations, the order must be thus)—­“et je prie le bon Dieu en personne.”  That both positions should be assailed simultaneously, operations must be begun in this quarter in the morning, at the hour of the first postal delivery.

“Point de saints, ni de colonels—­maintenant je comprends—­l’é-tat-ma-jor dans l’Armée et les saints au Paradis, c’est tout comme!”

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

“PUSS IN NEW BOOTS.”

Five hours is a great space out of a man’s life, but that was precisely the time taken by Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS to present his Puss in New Boots, so that I had leisure to study the book of the words, sold shamelessly to the unsuspecting (of whom I was not one), and compare the rough sketches of our three standard authors of the Lane, Messrs. COLLINS, SIMS and DIX with the version, by no manner of means final, of the comedians.  A pantomime book is on the whole rather a mournfully unsubtle document.  The thing is frankly not meant to be read when the blood is cool.  It is the Action, Action and again Action of such hefty knock-abouts as WILL EVANS, ROBERT HALE and STANLEY LUPINO that makes the dry bones live and the old squibs crackle.  And it is good fun to watch the audience at their share of authorship, setting the seal of their approval upon the happy wheeze, the well-contrived business, and blue-pencilling with their silence the wash-out or the too obscure allusion.

[Illustration:  DIANA OF THE LANE.