Yes, that was a thriller and a piece of excellent work. In the act a
real 32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge. Helen
Grimes, who is a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill and
daring, is tempestuously in love with Frank Desmond, the private
secretary and confidential prospective son-in-law of her father,
"Arapahoe" Grimes, quarter-million-dollar cattle king, owning a ranch
that, judging by the scenery, is in either the Bad Lands or Amagansett,
L. I. Desmond (in private life Mr. Bob Hart) wears puttees and Meadow
Brook Hunt riding trousers, and gives his address as New York, leaving
you to wonder why he comes to the Bad Lands or Amagansett (as the case
may be) and at the same time to conjecture mildly why a cattleman should
want puttees about his ranch with a secretary in 'em.

Well, anyhow, you know as well as I do that we all like that kind of
play, whether we admit it or not--something along in between "Bluebeard,
Jr.," and "Cymbeline" played in the Russian.

There were only two parts and a half in "Mice Will Play." Hart and
Cherry were the two, of course; and the half was a minor part always
played by a stage hand, who merely came in once in a Tuxedo coat and a
panic to announce that the house was surrounded by Indians, and to turn
down the gas fire in the grate by the manager's orders.

There was another girl in the sketch--a Fifth Avenue society
swelless--who was visiting the ranch and who had sirened Jack Valentine
when he was a wealthy club-man on lower Third Avenue before he lost
his money. This girl appeared on the stage only in the photographic
state--Jack had her Sarony stuck up on the mantel of the Amagan--of the
Bad Lands droring room. Helen was jealous, of course.