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Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2128, 29 February 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

‘Writing plays is risky business,” said Mr David Lelasco, the famous American dramatist and manager, a short time ago, “and whenever I attend the first night of one of my own plays I feel as nervous as a girl in a fog. My nervousness is in no way improved by the following story, which, oil such occasions, will persist in running through my mind. There wiis once a playwright who sat in the front row at the first night of a new piece of his own. This piece failed; it failed dreadfully. As the playwright sat, pale and sail, amid the hisses, a woman behind him leaned forward and said: ‘Excuse me, sir; but, knowing you to he the author oi this pla.v, I took the liberty, at the beginning of the performance, of snipping off a lock of your hair. Allow me now to return it to you.” Unlike Iving Edward, who is a greit connoisseur of cigars, and smokes little else than the choicest Havanas, the Kaiser, although a heavy smoker, cares very little about which brand of cigais he smokes. He by no means objects to even a cheap and common cheroot, and rarely pays more than threepence for these. The late King of Portugal had even worse taste in the matter of cigars, which were usually not only black, rank, and strong, but had a habit of burning on one side like the typical I; c.U:>-bage-leaf.” The present King Portugal, too, lias a penchant for long and strong cigars, While people who have been treated to one of Hie long green cigars which the Emoe/ov of Austria likes so much •■ avo teen glad to avoid a second one; for they are far from being a mild smolce. The Czarina, Queen Amclie of Portugal—whose mother,, the, Comtesse de Paris, smokes a mild cigar quite r.x frequently as a cigarette—the Queen of Roumanh, and the Queen-Mother of Spain are all habitual cigarettesmokers. , .... The charm of a nice girl is fascinating, irresistible; up one can get iwny from it; her smile is contagious and infects lier surroundings with the virus of happiness,