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Heaven is also expected to take care that the villain gets properly cursed, and to fill up its spare time by bringing misfortune upon the local landlord. It has to avenge everybody and to help all the good people whenever they are in trouble. And they keep it going in this direction.

And when the hero leaves for prison Heaven has to take care of his wife and child till he comes out; and if this isn’t a handful for it, we don’t know what would be!

Heaven on the stage is always on the side of the hero and heroine and against the police.

Occasionally, of late years, the comic man has been a bad man, but you can’t hate him for it. What if he does ruin the hero and rob the heroine and help to murder the good old man? He does it all in such a genial, light-hearted spirit that it is not in one’s heart to feel angry with him. It is the way in which a thing is done that makes all the difference.

Besides, he can always round on his pal, the serious villain, at the end, and that makes it all right.

The comic man is not a sportsman. If he goes out shooting, we know that when he returns we shall hear that he has shot the dog. If he takes his girl out on the river he upsets her (literally we mean). The comic man never goes out for a day’s pleasure without coming home a wreck.

If he merely goes to tea with his girl at her mother’s, he swallows a muffin and chokes himself.

The comic man is not happy in his married life, nor does it seem to us that he goes the right way to be so. He calls his wife “his old Dutch clock,” “the old geyser,” and such like terms of endearment, and addresses her with such remarks as “Ah, you old cat,” “You ugly old nutmeg grater,” “You orangamatang, you!” etc., etc.

Well, you know that is not the way to make things pleasant about a house.

Still, with all his faults we like the comic man. He is not always in trouble and he does not make long speeches.

Let us bless him.