The title piece sends up the fashionable problem play act by act, from the ushers hawking programmes to the lights going down on a drawing-room drama of temptation. Leacock follows it with familiar ordeals at the photographer’s, the dentist’s and the barber’s, and a set of Parisian pastimes in which an innocent abroad learns what a French hotel charges for a bath.
Leacock at his most playful, poking fun at theatre, travel and modern life in 1913. Download the free EPUB.