It reveals to us whether the marriage would have been successful or a failure.

It is necessary to convince us that the hero is a perfect gentleman: the author gives him a gold cigarette case.
A well-known dramatist has left it on record that comedy cannot exist nowadays, for the simple reason that gentlemen have given up taking snuff and wearing swords.

How can one have comedy in company with frock-coats--without its "Las" and its "Odds Bobs." The sword may have been helpful.

I have been told that at _levees_ City men, unaccustomed to the thing, have, with its help, provided comedy for the rest of the company.
But I take it this is not the comedy our dramatist had in mind.
Why not an Exhibition of Gentlemen?
It seems a pity that comedy should disappear from among us.

If it depend entirely on swords and snuff-boxes, would it not be worth the while of the Society of Authors to keep a few gentlemen specially trained?
Maybe some sympathetic theatrical manager would lend us costumes of the eighteenth century.