the common round of his exalted duties that, hearing of a convenient
double, he engages him, at four hundred a year and pickings, to
represent him at dull functions, and incidentally to pay the requisite
attentions to the young woman, reported by photograph as depressingly
plain, whom political considerations have marked as the _Prince's
fiancée_. When later one of the characters points out to His Highness
that this conduct showed some lapse from the finer ideals of taste, I
am bound to say that I could find no words of contradiction. However
the originality arrives when _John Stuart_, the deputy, instead of
falling in love with the bride-elect in Ruritanian fashion, develops
a marked liking for the prosaic side of his job, and insists upon
lecturing his supposed relations upon the political crisis of the
moment. Capital fun this. When the _fiancée_ in her turn proved wholly
different from the photograph I permitted myself to hope that we
were in for a double masquerade--but this was to expect too much.
Still, Mr. JEPSON has handled his wildly-preposterous plot with
great verve; and even if the central situation is one that has been
often encountered before, this only proves again that HOPE springs
eternal.... But I wish he had avoided the War.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Manager of Automatic Dreadnought Pianofortissimo
Company (enthusiastically to Literary Gentleman who has written a
moving appeal to the public in favour of the Company's goods)._ "MY
DEAR SIR, THIS IS MAGNIFICENT. IT ALMOST MAKES ME DECIDE TO BUY ONE
OF THE THINGS FOR MYSELF."]

* * * * *