for a reception invitation or something of the kind, with la mère in tow-then the jokelets on the inside of the programme can be scanned to advantage, or a fine phrenological reverie may be induced by glancing over the array of heads that are growing or have grown through their hirsute adornment. This latter pastime in a theatre is often worth the price of admission. In many instances the supreme effort not to appear bald is as beautifully worked as thread lace. There is something as paradoxical as Gilbert's most intricate fancy in hair being joined to a part. I can think of no other place where baldness is so vivid as in a theatre. You can almost see yourself reflected a hundred times in that funny way peculiar to convex mirrors. If the stuff on the stage is unusually bad you can often enjoy a short season in observing the peculiarities of the men in the band. The clarionet player, for instance, will often constitute a whole show by himself. Blowing wind into a clarionot must be a peculiarly nutritive exercise, for all the performers I have ever seen were so apoplectically healthy that it seemed as though they would burst and make a mess if a sneeze should surprise them in the middle of a cantata cadenza. I should not wish to see the prettiest girl I know play on a clarionet.

Another theatre diversion is the dude in the box. I would say that a dude in the box is very much like a jack in the box, only I don't feel particularly bitter just now against the jack. Sometimes even the front row becomes too obscure for the ambitious womankiller, and he feels bound to perch himself like a saucy canary right in the rainbow of variegated limbs that swings up and down on the waves of a waltz movement in a manner most terribly seductive to the gentry of the stalls. So he climbs into a box and looks as excitedly impatient and happy as does a little dog I've got when someone asks him if he wants to go out.

A friend asked me lately if the front row was made for the dude, or if the dude was made for the front row. I gave it up. But I'm certain that the tape on the ticker down at the Broad Street Delmonico's is read every day by a thousand people who never invested six cents in stocks in their lives, and never will. That ugly cynicism struck me just as the joyful idiot behind my chair stopped wiggling his feet in time to Courtice Pound's hornpipe. It is one of the sweet delights that goes with the price of a single admission to have the rustic immediately at your back express his appreciation of a musical jingle by prancing up your chair, while a close relation of his in front foretells the climaxes that are sure to arrive if you will only have patience

and wait. I always feel like kissing the individual, too, who begins to lustily applaud a fine bit of acting before it is anywhere near finished. But what pleases me most-if I may be permitted to continue in this strain of devlish sarcasm-is to have three or four hidden wretches in the gallery call back the tenor singer to sing his depressing ballad, when I know that the comedian is waiting at the wings to respond to his cue and give us the best thing in the piece.

Broadway at eleven o'clock. Everything is on the flare. Light exteriors are urging people into lighted interiors where a staccato rhapsody is being played with champagne corks, and the light-footed menial is pursuing a grilled bone to its disappearance, or hunting Philadelphia squabs for anxious girls, who would order up a full portion of liver and bacon if they were less anxious to bring their refined etheriality under their escort's notice. New York might be Hoboken if it were not for Delmonico's, at any rate it would be something other than itself. The Hoffmans and the Brunswicks may rise and fall, but Delmonico's is the rock which the waves beat up against in vain. One may get stranded there very easily, and when it is high tide with all hands, too. If she orders more than one wine under that roof, you should immediately hoist the danger signals.

The noisy contingent over at the corner table is made up of three members of the chorus reserves in the "Big Money" troupe, together with Egbert Floydd-Yumps, Willie Whyteyse and Maurice Mudd, who have checkbooks and also a pair of trousers for every day in the year. They are now on what the ancients technically termed "a racket." Mudd would be able to tell you why chorus girls can afford to wear seal-skin garments and diamonds on a salary of twenty dollars a week.

Mr.

TO MISS EASTLAKE

AS HELLE.

A Siren singing on a mead

To lure to death

Th' unwary traveler paying heed To but a breath,

A fleeting echo of her song:

A fierce mingling with the wine A poisoned smile,

To make a noble man a swine

By her fair wile,

Masking with feignéd love her hate :

A Venus using all the charm

In beauty's power

To bring a man to direful harm

In one short hour

And thus her angry passions sate:

A woman mad with trembling fears,

Ah! wretched sight!

The maddened mob approaching hears, Unhappy plight!

Dead! slain to right an awful wrong.

Mason Carnes.

POTTER-GAUTHEREAU.

IN the reign of good king Louis 'Philippehe of the pear-shaped head and fondness for pacanes, sirop de batterie and gombo file from the well-kept plantations of his companions of exile in Louisiana, Bernard de Marigny and Nicholas du Bois de Kerlosquet-there were restrictions upon the playhouses of Paris, that were solemn and wise. To be a manager one had to have political influence, and it was well, because in France what "the opposition" does not dare to say it dares to sing, and in France "tout finit par des chansons."

There lived then, a man whose name was Joly, who had two or three politicians in his sleeve, and who obtained the enviable privilege to give spectacular plays-with this special observance in the privilege, that there should be only two speaking characters in any play. It was well for a dialogue but not for a féerie, with caliphs, odalisks, gold mines, and genii who built palaces-but Joly was not an ordinary man. He obeyed the law; there were only two speaking persons in every play, but there were many other persons in them, mimics, who moved their heads and hands and lips, while some one spoke for them behind the

scenes.

Joly was a great man, methinks, and might have changed the stage but for the deeplyrooted prejudice that comes of custom.

His system had the advantage of making it an impossibility for a player to become the

writer's co-laborer, in a manner, similar to the antiquated one of asking for alms on the highway with a revolver-and actually there are no playwrights, there are only players.

Joly's system would be a boon to the professional beauties and to those who hear them. The Louisianians who chide M. le Comte de Paris with the memory of his grandfather's exile, for being ungrateful, will then own that Louis Philippe has left some good behind him, Louisiana being directly interested in professional beauties, in the persons of Mrs. James Brown Potter and Mme. Gauthereau, one the pride of Paris, the other of New York, both stage-struck, natives of New Orleans and of old Louisiana families.

David Gamut.

AN ODD AMBITION. HAVING been constantly informed by the greatest actors of the time that my case is without parallel in the history of the stage, I venture to offer its description to the readers of the Era Almanack. In the first place I belong to a very distinct set of aristocrats. Not to the mere smart or recently-created peers and peeresses, who receive any kind of popular commoner in their drawing-rooms, but to a noble race, whose chief pride is blue blood and uninterrupted descendants. In fact, I am the Hon. Cholmondeley Majoribanks Beauchamp Levison Belowcke, the proper pronunciation of which is Chumly Marshbanks Beechum Luson Bloke. We were, and still are, very proud. My great-aunt, Julia, Countess Diehlwater (pronounced Dillwater), never recovered the shock inflicted upon our family by the disgraceful conduct of my uncle, the Hon. Arthur Albert Tieghligne (pronounced Tealine), who, with a total disregard to his rank and the family pride, entered into some business in the City, and sank to the grade of a Lord Mayor. However, that is no more to do with my case than the flowers that bloom in the spring, Tra-la. There is no disguising the fact that at Eton I displayed a natural ability for the stage in the elocutionary manner in which I repeated the Latin verbs, and on speech day I was personally congratulated, not only by the Provost, but by Mr. M- the well-known actor, whose son was in the sixth. Please don't think I say this from conceit, for the stage was not, nor has it ever been, my ambition. Subsequently at Cambridge I became a member, against my will almost, of the A.D.C., and made an immense hit in the part of Padback in the wellknown farce, "Pawning my Uncle's Trousers." You should have heard the shriek of laughter when I turned my face up the stage, and dis

played behind one coat-tail and a bright green patch in the seat of my unmentionable. Such a proceeding on the part of a professional farce-actor would have been vetoed as excessively vulgar, but you see I was undergraduate at Trinity and the grandson of a Duke, and that makes such a difference. Eventually, when I went down for good, my father proceeded to repeat his oft-expressed wish that I should be an actor, a wish which was echoed by the whole of my proud family, who, in spite of their petty prejudices against the professions of doctor, barrister, clergyman, banker, and all trade, always upheld the dignity of the stage. But I had another ambition-I yearned to be a City clerk; an unobtrusive, modest City clerk. When I broke the news to my father he was furious. He went away shooting, and on his return in November, positively insisted on my accepting a professional engagement at once. In obedience to his request, I wrote a letter to our then principal and most popular actor and manager, telling him I was open to an engagement, and I stated my position. He was evidently much touched by my epistle, and wrote an extremely good-natured letter, very characteristic of him, in which he said he was going to revive "Hamlet," and could offer me the part of Horatio. He said nothing about the terms. I replied that I would accept the part, and asked, knowing that actors are very well paid, nowadays, forty pounds a week. The good manager, with great generosity. accepted my terms, but he insisted on making it guineas. I pegged away at Horatio, and eventually made an enormous hit, although, strange to say, I do not see it recorded in the Era Almanack, which is supposed to be so correct in its Calendar.

For a time I was pleased with the manner I was received on the stage, while my position in Society of course was much advanced. In fact, for a time my vanity was tickled. Bu after the fiftieth performance I got weary and sick. People began to recognize me in the street; they nudged each other when they saw me in the Park, and as I passed, said "Look -you know who that is-Belowcke." Then, to add to these miseries, I began to eclipse the manager as an actor. I even tried to act badly, but that was impossible. Then I was tortured by the horrible thought that the salary I was getting was enormous, and much more than I was really worth. It is a very fortunate circumstance that few actors are inflicted in that way; it's a dreadful feeling. During the waits, my secret ambition wormed itself into my very soul. I thought of nothing but City clerks. I read of them, dreamed of them. the daytime I found myself sneaking into the City in their company-2d return to Mansion

In

House. At one o'clock I would go to Lake's or Pimm's, and have a cut off the hot joint, vegetables and bread, half-pint of bitter, one and sixpence; penny the waiter. Oh! the charm. The bustling, the hustling, rushing out of the place with mouth full, back to business-frock coat, tall hat, sailor's knot (ready made)—all were fascinating. Then leaning against a lamp-post with five minutes to spare-eating walnuts-a perfect dolce far niente.

One evening I saw a clerk buy three or four potatoes from a baked-potato-can man and put them into his pocket, and hurry off to catch his train at Moorgate Street. I bought some myself, and can conscientiously declare potatoes could not be better baked at Her Majesty's table. One night the snow fell terribly and the fog was fearful. The result was a rather bad house at the theatre. I could not see the audience, and I don't think the audience could see me. In any case, I got no reception when I came on the stage. I returned to my room and burst out crying. My vanity was wounded, and quite right, too. Vanity is a dangerous thing to possess. I was resolved! At the end of the performance I went to the kind manager's room, and said in an outburst of tears, I would never act again, and I asked to be liberated at once. I shall never forget how quiet and kind he was to me. With thoughtfulness and generosity he said he would do anything to afford me pleasure; he would accept my resignation (although he was obliged to admit that its suddenness was unusual), and could not thank me sufficiently for the handsome service I had rendered him. He got up, and opening a cabinet, took out a beautiful gold repeater presentation watch, on the back of which were engraved his and my names. I left the stage that evening forever.

By this course I have quarreled with my proud family, it is true. I have forfeited my fortune also, but I have realized my great ambition--I am a City clerk! Sitting at my desk ten hours a day is no more monotonous or unhealthy than sitting fishing in a punt in wet weather for the same length of time, which I have frequently done. What does it matter to any one else, so long as I am happy? I have three pounds a week, a wife and six children. I am not above carrying my fifth child in my left arm and wheeling the sixth in a perambulator with my right. My friends are friends and not acquaintances, and what pleases me most, call me Belowcke as it is spelled, and not Bloke as my affected and proud family did. I feel I shall yet live to see the day when Society will cease its bitter prejudice against the noble profession of a City clerk.

George Grossmith.