EARLY THEATRICAL EXPERIENCES 



At Drury Lane the harlequinade was an elaborate 

 affair, lasting quite an hour in those days. Incident- 

 ally this is the part of the show that amuses 

 children even more than the pantomime proper. Why, 

 then, don't they put it half way through the per- 

 formance and give a good half-hour to it ? Even the 

 modern child can still laugh at the red-hot poker, 

 sausages and what not. 



Poor Charles Warner ! Tom Thorne may recollect 

 one night — I think it was the hundredth performance 

 of Our Boys — when AVarner had said his third " By 

 Jove ! " With a shout a corner of the pit let him have 

 it : " That's the third ' By Jove ! ' Charlie. We don't 

 want any more." But Warner was a popular idol. 

 It was rather tragic that he and Miss Amy Roselle, 

 both in the original cast of Our Boys, should die under 

 such tragic circumstances, the former in New York 

 and the latter in Sydney, N.S.W. 



28 



