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PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series
of volumes, each complete in itself,
the cream of our national humour,
contributed by the masters of
comic draughtsmanship and the
leading wits of the age to "Punch,"
from its beginning in 1841 to the
present day.

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

[Illustration]

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[Illustration: _Actor (on the stage)._ "Me mind is made up!"

_Voice from the Gallery._ "What abeaout yer fice?"]

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

HUMOURS OF MUSIC AND THE DRAMA

_WITH 140 ILLUSTRATIONS_

[Illustration]

BY CHARLES KEENE, PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER, BERNARD PARTRIDGE, L.
RAVEN-HILL, E. T. REED, F. H. TOWNSEND, C. E. BROCK, A. S. BOYD, TOM
BROWNE, EVERARD HOPKINS AND OTHERS

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"

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THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

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THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_

  LIFE IN LONDON
  COUNTRY LIFE
  IN THE HIGHLANDS
  SCOTTISH HUMOUR
  IRISH HUMOUR
  COCKNEY HUMOUR
  IN SOCIETY
  AFTER DINNER STORIES
  IN BOHEMIA
  AT THE PLAY
  MR. PUNCH AT HOME
  ON THE CONTINONG
  RAILWAY BOOK
  AT THE SEASIDE
  MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
  IN THE HUNTING FIELD
  MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
  WITH ROD AND GUN
  MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
  BOOK OF SPORTS
  GOLF STORIES
  IN WIG AND GOWN
  ON THE WARPATH
  BOOK OF LOVE
  WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

Most of the PUNCH artists of note have used their pencils on the
theatre; with theatricals public and private none has done more than Du
Maurier. All have made merry over the extravagances of melodrama and
"problem" plays; the vanity and the mistakes of actors, actresses and
dramatists; and the blunderings of the average playgoer.

MR. PUNCH genially satirises the aristocratic amateurs who, some few
years ago, made frantic rushes into the profession, and for a while
enjoyed more kudos as actors than they had obtained as titled members
of the upper circle, and the exaggerated social status that for the time
accrued to the professional actor as a consequence of this invasion.

The things he has written about the stage, quite apart from all
reviewing of plays, would more than fill a book of itself; and he has
slyly and laughingly satirised players, playwrights and public with an
equal impartiality.

He has got a deal of fun out of the French dramas and the affected
pleasure taken in them by audiences that did not understand the
language. He has got even more fun out of the dramatists whose "original
plays" were largely translated from the French, and to whom Paris was,
and to some extent is still, literally and figuratively "a playground."

[Illustration]

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

SOMETHING FOR THE MONEY

(_From the Playgoers' Conversation Book. Coming Edition._)

[Illustration]

I have only paid three guineas and a half for this stall, but it is
certainly stuffed with the very best hair.

The people in the ten-and-sixpenny gallery seem fairly pleased with
their dado.

I did not know the call-boy was at Eton.

The expenses of this house must be enormous, if they always play _Box
and Cox_ with a rasher of real Canadian bacon.

How nice to know that the musicians, though out of sight under the
stage, are in evening dress on velvet cushions!

Whoever is the author of this comedy, he has not written up with spirit
to that delightful Louis the Fifteenth linen cupboard.

I cannot catch a word "