It will be seen that, the stuff of Mr. Jerome's play is sufficiently fatuous; but Mr. Edmund Maurice as _The Colonel_ was always amusing, and in the multitude of counsellors there was merriment. Unfortunately Mr. Stanley Cooke, as a _Herr Professor_ and leader of the chorus, did not quite succeed in executing his share of the fun.
[Illustration: How Unhappy could I be with Either!
_The Husband_ Mr. Michael Sherebrooke, _The Wife_ Miss Sarah Brooke. _The Colonel_ Mr. Edmund Maurice.]
The farce was varied by a very amateur romance as between a young American and the niece of an hotel-keeper; also by a slab of melodrama (dealing with the girl's parentage) which only escaped from pure banality by the too brief glimpse it gave us of that admirable actress, Miss Ruth Mackay.
The scene (perhaps the best part of the whole show) was laid in "An Ancient Grove" adjacent to a German University. (The catalogue, peculiarly reticent about proper names, offers my memory no refreshment.) This "Ancient Grove," unchanged throughout the play, served a number of useful purposes. It made excuse for the intermittent apparition (otherwise inexplicable) of a little woodland figure that played upon a pipe. Its proximity to an hotel afforded occasion for meal after meal _en plein air_. Its proximity to a University Town encouraged the frequent passage of German students, vivacious and vocal; also the convenient appearance of any foreign resident or visitor at a moment's notice. Its Statue of Venus (fully draped) afforded an authentic incitement to the making of love. Its environs enabled Mr. Jerome to dispose of his puppets whenever their presence became undesirable. They simply said, "Let us stroll in the woods;" or "Come for a walk with me," and he was rid of them. Finally the "Ancient Grove" contained a central patch of boscage in whose cover one of the duellists, arriving on the _terrain_ a little before the time, remained _perdu_ in slumber, undisturbed by a loud conversation carried on within a few feet of him by all the other parties to the combat.
Indeed the scenery put in some good work, and I really don't know what we should have done without it.
_The Great Gamble_ was, of course, the lottery of marriage. But for some of us it meant the risk we ran in attending the first night of a play by Mr. Jerome after our bitter experience of his _Rowena in Search of a Father_. To say that his present work is an improvement upon his last would be to damn it with a fainter praise than it deserves. _The Great Gamble_ is a strange and inscrutable medley, but it has its exhilarating moments, and the humour of its dialogue, though it is mitigated by the Professor's contributions, is worthy of a much better design.