Last Friday evening the Dramatic Club sponsored a lecture and picture in aid of the "'Save the Spanish Children' Fund." This presumably, but not so ostensibly, was the reason for the receipt of moneys at the door.

The Stage is Set.

The curtains parted to reveal the set. Front centre. Mr. Aimers, seated. Back drop covered with posters which the veriest child could see were from the "Loyalist" group in Spain. The tragic-comedy began. Mr. Aimers soon proved to be only the interlocutor—in the true style of Thucydides, or was it Simonides of Ceas? He cunningly tried to lead the assembled throng of the mass' Who constituted the audience to believe that this was to be an appeal for the destitute Spanish children—from both sides—torn from their families, now starving and homeless. Even the Training College girls in the third row didn't believe this for a moment, however, and every one eagerly awaited the real drammer which was to come.

Soon the first principal appeared. A few chosen words, and the problem was laid before us. The staunch hearts of the students who stood for the Great Principle beat a trifle faster—and the moving, epochal epic was under way in its re-telling. As the Good Book says: "Proletarier aller hander vereinight euch" which being translated is: "The faster a whale goes, the swimmer."—Now we students, by virtue of our Klassical education, are fully aware of tills—and we must take our Responsibility in Both Hands.

Snake in the Grass.

The villain, as always villains must be, was very, very bad. That is to say, he has no conscience, is in league with the Powers of Darkness, can call upon all the forces of magic, and almost but never quite vanquishes the heroes and heroines. These latter, who, by virtue of their nobleness of character and the fact that they are All Right and very [unclear: Proletarian] must of course in the end win. Or else we'd demand our money back at the door wouldn't we children?

The heroes were not of your intellectualist brand—they were good honest miners from Asturia mostly, who were frightfully brave. They had copied the good Americans in having an alphabet of politics so that no one would understand, and especially the enemy, who would be well fooled. The enemy was very dull in any case, they couldn't even read Spanish, not having wallowed in the wealth of learning.

Moving Movies.

The story went "Onward and Upward"—an the second act carried on the tale. The introduction of the great modern invenshun of the movie, as the technical setting for the part, showed how the production staff was up to the minute. Now the heroes and the villains became quasi-flesh before our very eyes. No longer the remote play upon emotion, no longer the world-shy doctrinaire, abstraction of the Issues. (Earnest apologies, my respected Oswald S.) but the realities. The heroes were now shown in their true colours (sometimes Technicolor) pushing home the bolts of rifles us if their very lives depended on it. The villains, however, were still rather obscured, being portrayed only behind clouds of dust or aeroplane fuselage.

Of course they couldn't really be shown in the flesh as rather human like men and women, because then where would we be? Or would we?

Already we sensed the close of the story, and reached for our reportorial hat, imagining a mug of milk at Gates's, when The Surprise came. The stark genius of the thing took one's breath away. Suddenly from the front seat in the audience he appeared. The Enemy? No! Tis but the wind. But stay. It is! It is! (Consternation.) That [unclear: amazing] freedom and liberalness which marks the student from his kind, or perhaps it was that same ferocity which the Romans displayed when another Ethiopian was tossed to the lions, or maybe just the vulgar capitalist desire to get a full bob's worth, each and all allowed the Enemy to move up on the stage. A magnificent epilogue. We felt sure all along that we were being fooled and that the villain would really be the misunderstood hero and the pretended heroes were really the Dinkum Enemy in disguise and had very good magic and were really (very hushed) Racketeers.

State of the Land.

The Enemy (I still use the did name so as not to confuse our younger readers, bless them) in reality were very hard done by. They had had all their lovely land pinched—at given dates, this all being verified "de riguer." The State, which had been influenced by the perfectly awful things which were being done by the State next door, actually wanted to educate the workers and peasants. They were too poor, however, having no land or anything, and that's why they "pinched" the land of the Enemy. The State, in order to hide its real plan, made the people believe that the Good Things being done by the Enemy were really bad.

This last master stroke left the audience dazed. Followed a "Quick Curtain," a word from the interlocutor again—in the true style of Thucydides, or was it from the "Book of the Dead"?—to the effect that there was an insufficient quantity of tea to go round and we knew the problem play was finished. "Here lies The Defence of Madrid'—the noblest problem play of them all."

Just Suckers.

But don't you see, children?—you have still been fooled! The real problem is not "Who is the Hero?" and "Who is the Enemy?" but what has all this to do with the price of fish in Patagonia on Saturday afternoons, or with the colour of Mary's eyes, or even with 'the camps to be set up in the Pyrenees to feed starving children and mothers? Now you never thought of that, did you? But still it doesn't matter, because your shillings collected at the door are destined to help those camps—and after all you did got your bob's worth of fun—I wonder.

"And the lord said: 'Feed my lambs.'"

But why on tripe?

—Sancho Panca.