Folk Ways

Stranger than the Afric prancings of the race of Hot & Tot* are the quaint folk ways of London playgoers wishful of economizing by sitting in the second balcony. Seats of such altitude are not reserved and can only be bought a short time before curtains rise. Therefore hardy balcony patrons gather betimes to form their amazing queues.

Early standees may arrive for an especially popular play on the midnight before --full 20 hours in advance. When flesh and blood can stand no longer, the queue folk rent camp stools from hucksters for a few pence each. Then, lest they topple in exhaustion from the stools, they fling several more coppers to street artists and organ grinders who essay to keep the queue awake. Finally standees and sittees dose themselves with coffee sold by vendors who cry loudly the first Hottentot syllable, "hot . . . hot . . . HOT!" Last week Edward of Wales commented sympathetically upon London theatre queues in addressing the Old Playgoers' Club, a cozy, clannish company. Said he: "We who have seen a long line of very sad, pale, cold people queuing up for the first performance of a new play which is not going to open for 20 hours cannot help admiring the courage and tenacity of our countrymen. . . ." His Royal Highness displayed no courage but much eccentricity by arriving at the Old Playgoers' banquet wearing a white dress cravat of such unique and blatant size that the ends of the bow measured three inches broad, completely masking his collar and neck.

*Hottentots are so called, as everyone knows, because of the incessant recurrence in their language of the syllables hot and tot.