VIGIL "Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day, And took with her your trifle of money; Bless your heart, they don't mind-they're exceedingly kind- They don't blame you-as long as you're funny " W. S. Gilbert: "The Family Fool." Roused by a report of peace hardly less deafening than the crash of war four and a half years earlier, the winter garden of the Majestic hummed like a vast and airless beehive. On the long sofas by the walls, in deferential clusters round some slow-voiced, arm-chair oracle and in wavering groups at one moment distinct and at another herded together, everybody who could find room between the crowded tables and the obtrusive palm-tubs eagerly volleyed question and answer, contributing his pennyworth of gossip and retiring with his pound of rumour.