I hope I shall not be suspected of partiality towards one of Mr. Punch’s young men if I say that this is the best of the good things that Mr. MILNE has given us.  As in his unacted play, The Lucky One, he gives evidence of a desire, not unfrequent in humourists, to be taken seriously.  But he knows by now that brilliant dialogue is what is expected of him, and he thinks, too modestly, that he cannot afford to dispense with it for long at a time.  The result is that, after stringing us up to face a tragic situation, he is tempted to let us down with light-hearted cynicisms.  He would hate me to suggest that Mr. BERNARD SHAW has infected him, but perhaps he wouldn’t mind my hinting at the influence of Sir JAMES BARRIE.  Certainly his Mardens remind me of the Darlings in Peter Pan.  Just as there we were invited alternately to weep for the bereaved mother’s sorrow and roar over the bereaved father’s buffooneries, so here, though not so disastrously, our hearts are torn between sympathy for the husband’s real troubles and amusement at the wife’s flippant attitude towards the common tragedy.

I will not deny the sneaking pleasure which this flippancy gave me at the time, but in the light of calmer reflection I feel that Mr. MILNE would really have pleased himself better if he could have found the courage to keep the play on a serious note all through the interval between Mr. Pim’s first and second revelations.  Apart from the higher question of sincerity he would have gained something, in an artistic sense, by getting a stronger contrast out of the change of situation that followed the announcement of Tellworthy’s demise.

In the First Act we seemed to have a little too much of the young couple, but this insistence was perhaps justified by the important part which their affairs subsequently played (along with the leit-motif of the futuristic curtains) in the readjustment of the relations between husband and wife.

If I have any flaw to find in a really charming play, I think it was a mistake for Mrs. Marden to let Mr. Pim into the secret of her past.  As with the sweet influences of Pippa, so with the devastating havoc wrought by the inexactitudes of Mr. Pim, I think he should have been left unconscious of the effect of his passing.

For the rest,

  Mr. MILNE’S at his best—­
  All’s right with the play!

O.S.

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[Illustration:  IT WAS UNFORTUNATE THAT BROWN HAD NOT FINISHED HIS MASTERPIECE, “THE SURRENDER OF THE GARRISON,” BY THE TIME THE WAR CAME TO AN END.]

[Illustration:  HOWEVER, IT NEEDED VERY LITTLE ALTERATION TO MAKE IT SALEABLE.]

* * * * *

EUPHONIOUS ALIENS.

(A successful chamber concert has been given by three players, styling themselves “The Modern Trio,” and named as under.)