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A LADY AND GENTLEMAN

IN A PECULIARLY PERPLEXING PREDICAMENT.

Mrs. Waylett and Mr. Keeley were the lady and gentleman who were placed in
the peculiarly perplexing predicament of making a second-hand French
interlude supportable to an English Opera audience. In this they more than
succeeded--for they caused it to be amusing; they made the most of what
they had to do, which was not much, and of what they had to say, which was
a great deal too much; for the piece would be far more tolerable if
considerably shorn of its unfair proportions. The translator seems to have
followed the verbose text of his original with minute fidelity, except
where the idioms bothered him; and although the bills declare it is adapted
by Mr. Charles Selby to the English stage, the thing is as essentially
French as it is when performed at the _Palais Royal_, except where the
French language is introduced, when, in every instance, the labours of
correct transcription were evidently above the powers of the translator.
The best part of the adaptation is the exact fitness of the performers to
their parts; we mean as far as concerns their _personnel_.

Of course, all the readers of PUNCH know Mr. Keeley. Let them, then,
conceive him an uncle at five-and-thirty, but docking himself of six years'
age when asked impertinent questions. He has a head of fine auburn hair,
and dresses in a style that a _badaud_ would call "quiet;" that is to say,
he wears brass buttons to his coat, which is green, and adorned with a
velvet collar. In short, it is not nearly so fine as Lord Palmerston's, for
it has no velvet at the cuffs; and is not embroidered. Add white