Whilst as littérateur he fears to fail, as raconteur he hopes to succeed. Just one more prefatory appeal before our Musical Director starts his overture. The act of committing to paper reminiscences so inestimably precious to himself must touch a tender chord in the soul of the narrator. Carried away by the bitter-sweet retrospect of thirty years' familiar intercourse with the founders of the Savoy — all now at rest — he may at intervals appear to express his thoughts in what his late friend, Sir William Gilbert, described as Heart-foam. What then If his admiration, his affection for his departed leaders and colleagues blinds him at moments to a due sense of proportion, shall not such emotion he held excusable?