Well, a bomb is found in the foundations
of _Lord William's_ Park Lane palace, and explodes to embarrassed
laughter of shocked stall-holders in the Third Act.
The plot's nothing, and the main joke, as I say, nothing to get excited
over. But the whole effect of the tremendous trifle, admirably cast as
it was, was diverting in the extreme.
Of course it is like our Mr. GALSWORTHY to assume that things will be as
black as ever a few years hence. 'Tis, no doubt, what encourages us to
keep our end up in the great War. But we know the customs of leopards,
and can forgive our pessimist for his creations (for all the world as if
he were a milliner) of _Poulder, Lord William's_ butler, rounded pillar
of the eternal old order of things; of _James_, revolutionary but
faithful (of course _James_ never would in fact have kept this absurd
job); of a light yellow pressman; of a feckless, torrentially eloquent
plumber, whose solution of the class war was loving-kindness and the
letting of the blood of all who were not kind.
Mr. EADIE was a beloved vagabond of a plumber doing a fine part on his
head, as is his way nowadays. But the thing is so good that it is
perhaps ungracious to remind him he could make it better. Mr. SIDNEY
PAXTON'S triumph with _Poulder_ was his admirable restraint--rarest of
accomplishments among comic stage butlers. The effect of everything was
heightened by this excellent economy. It was a lesson in artistic
reticence. An even more notable feat in the same kind was _The Press_
of Mr.
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