wife and child till he comes out; and if this isn't a handful for it,
we don't know what would be!

Heaven on the stage is always on the side of the hero and heroine and
against the police.

Occasionally, of late years, the comic man has been a bad man, but you
can't hate him for it. What if he does ruin the hero and rob the
heroine and help to murder the good old man? He does it all in such a
genial, light-hearted spirit that it is not in one's heart to feel
angry with him. It is the way in which a thing is done that makes all
the difference.

Besides, he can always round on his pal, the serious villain, at the
end, and that makes it all right.

The comic man is not a sportsman. If he goes out shooting, we know
that when he returns we shall hear that he has shot the dog. If he
takes his girl out on the river he upsets her (literally we mean).
The comic man never goes out for a day's pleasure without coming home
a wreck.

If he merely goes to tea with his girl at her mother's, he swallows a
muffin and chokes himself.

The comic man is not happy in his married life, nor does it seem to us
that he goes the right way to be so. He calls his wife "his old Dutch
clock," "the old geyser," and such like terms of endearment, and
addresses her with such remarks as "Ah, you old cat," "You ugly old
nutmeg grater," "You orangamatang, you!" etc., etc.