"Beldam!" answers the impolite ruffian,
"take that, and haunt me no more!"

Seizes her, and strikes her to the earth.

Shame! shame! but only to be expected
from one of Sir Rowland's men. Ada the
Betrayed is suddenly thrown out of a window,
and comes rolling down the roof of a shed.
Good ruffian comes after. "Falls senseless,"
adds stage direction. Red fire (this time);
grand tableau; act falls. By the way, why
should the act fall?

The rest may be conceived. Squire comes
into his ill-gotten gains, and, as usual, is
preyed on by remorse. The wicked ruffian
spends his time in extracting monies from
the wretched man; but, in his turn, has a
most inconvenient follower in the person of
Mad Maud, who never loses sight of him,
and has always plenty of hoarse Cushman
diction for him. Naturally enough under
such circumstances life becomes a burden to
him. He falls out with his fellow ruffian,
the whole business is discovered, and Ada
the Betrayed, now grown into a, fine young
woman, is restored to her rights. The Squire
protesting he will not die a felon's death,
seizes Sir Francis's sword and stabs himself,
giving up the ghost with this profane
remark: "My deep curses on you all." The
wicked ruffian, in trying to make his escape,
falls clean from the roof into the street, and,
strange to relate, walks in to where the
company are assembled, only just in time to
meet Mad Maud, who sees him through
to the last. Everything may be therefore
said to end happily, leaving only one thing to
be accounted for—why the young person
known as Ada the Betrayed should be fitted
with so awkward an epithet.

But playwrights over the bridge have
gone further. Not content with the fiery
ingredients proper to themselves, they have
cast about for purer elements, which they
have broken up profanely, and mixed
altogether in the melodramatic cauldron. Works
of fiction have been violently dragged across
the bridge, and cruelly handled, distorted,
and altered beyond possibility of recognition.

It is a little startling to meet with a work
entitled Dombey and Son; or, Good Mrs.
Brown the Child-Stealer. A Drama in Two
Acts, from the Pen of the Inimitable Charles
Dickens, Esq. From which title it is plain,
that, on the lady bearing the name of Brown,
would be thrown the chief burden of the
piece. The action proceeds with extraordinary
rapidity. In the third scene the Child-
Stealer comes on, and does her part
handsomely; and, shortly after, a very curious
interview follows between Mr. Dombey and
an inspector of police. "You say, sir," that
official remarks, "that on Wednesday your
son was lost. What was the age of the boy?"
To him Mr. Dombey makes the following
extraordinary communication:—"Five years
and two months I've advertised in vain. I
feel assured my boy has been stolen, from
what I can understand. It appears that on
Wednesday, my servant, Susan, took the
children into the park. The boy had on
some very expensive clothing. It must have
been his clothes that attracted the attention
of the thief. I would cheerfully part with
my fortune to recover my boy. In him all
my hopes are centred. My bright vision of
the future, which I had pictured to myself,
are all crushed (sic) by this unforeseen
circumstance, and occasioned, too, by the
stupidity and neglect of a servant."

In nowise mystified by this extraordinary
address, and even by the curious
ignorance of his native tongue exhibited
by a gentleman of Mr. Dombey's station
in life, the inspector replies with
cordiality, "I will make the case known at the
various stations, and if the boy has been
stolen by any of the gangs that now infest
the metropolis, you may rest assured he will
be restored safe and unhurt; as the clothes
he had on, and the subsequent reward offered
by yourself, solely induced the base wretches
to secure the boy's person. For my own part,
I will use every endeavour to recover him."

To him, Dombey, winding up with a
sentiment:—

You have my thanks, sir; and, if the
curses of a parent can descend on a mortal,
they will fall heavily on the wretch who
could thus destroy my comfort and happiness."
(Exeunt.)

But, what is this to the next stage in the
piece, where another violent wrench is given
to the original plot. Good Mrs. Brown, the
Child-Stealer, has gotten the youthful
Dombey into a wretched cellar in Smithfield,
where a conversation follows, ingeniously
adapted from old Fagin in Oliver Twist.

"Drink, my dear, drink (pouring out half-
a-glass of gin). It will send him to sleep,
and that's what I want." Stage direction:—
She empties her wallets of its contents, and
gazes at them with a greedy, fiendish grin.

"Not a bad day's work," the Child-Stealer
says, looking over some silver spoons; adding,
in language plainly superior to her station,
"the servant's credulity was easily imposed
upon."

Suddenly, the inspector of police appears.
"So Mother Damnable," says that vigilant,
but free-tongued officer, "we've discovered
your haunt at last. You march off with me
to gaol for child-stealing." (Seizes her.)

Mrs. Brown remonstrates.

"What! go with you? Oh, dear, no!"

Strange to say, the aged woman then
knocks down the inspector, bolts the door
within, opens the trap, and descends. Policemen
force the door, and raise the inspector
—Dombey senior, and crowd following.
Inspector, who has been raised, suddenly
exclaims:

"The hag! Ah! she has escaped. Where's
the boy?"