CAMBRIDGE STUDENTS' JOKE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 389, 14 May 1910, Page 8

CAMBRIDGE STUDENTS' JOKE

UNDERGRADUATES' HOAX.

at the latest undergraduate in which two members of Magdalene College, dressed as ladies, attempted to attend a performance at the New Theatre of the musical comedy, "Dear Little Denmark."

It is a strict rule of the theatre management (says a writer in an English exchange) that undergraduates may not purchase tickets for stage'-boxes unless accompanied by ladies or some otaer satisfactory .chaperone. Oil a recent Saturday tickets for a party of five in a box were .purchased in the name of a well-known Cambridge resident. Just after the performance commenced, two "ladies," accompanied by three undergraduates, drove u,p to the theatre in taxi-cabs.

The ladies were dress in white silk, with richly-embroidered cloaks. Ovei their crisply curling tresses, white lace theatre wra.ps were drawn and bunched up loosely at the throats. Their skirts, daintily held clear of the ground by white-gloved Angers, revealed glistening high-heeled patent leather shoes and the slim lines of neat ankles and shapely insteps, veiled with silk open-work stockings. All had gone well so far. The disguise was perfect. In the vestibule the manager of the theatre, Mr. W. B. Redfern, had been passed within a few feet. It was only by accident as the ladies were ascending "the staircase that the hoax was discovered. Mr. Redfern, who happened to be following in the rear of the party, .heard one ol tile ladies, as she tripped on her skirt, give vent to a short, sharp exclamation of annoyance in one syllable.

"Her" voice was an unmistakable bass voice. The manager stepped in front of the party at the top of the stairs and declined to allow them to enter the box. The "ladies," turning in retreat, took the stairs with very mannish strides two at a time. In the vestibule the (party, managed to evade a iproctor who entered the main entrance of the theatre as the "ladies" and their male friends dashed out of a .side entrance and scrambled into two taxicabs which were in waiting.