Hennings and Middleton

Said the old rube hotel keeper to the touring soubret: "Here, gal, take this money. Go home and see your mother and the baby. It's all we've got. Martha and I hoped to get enough someday to go to New York and find Our Nell. But we can wait. You look like a good girl and I believe you are. It has taken us six years to save it." "Oh! How can I ever thank you?" said the traveling soubret, as she counted a heap of money the old man poured out of a pail. "Why, I only need $30 and there's $32.75 here," she said. "Never you mind," replied the hotel keeper, "You just take the difference and buy a present for the baby." The man runs the hotel in the woods, which the girl came on to do a turn at the Gem. The old rube took to her, not noticing a resemblance in the soubrette to “Our Nell,” who had disappeared. For twenty-one minutes this rehash of all the Creasy mush bucolic pieces ran along until it seemed the girl would make a lightning change, and reappear as Our Nell. But she didn't, for after unloading some of Bert Leslie's slang, the girl made an exit, and the old man closed the sketch with a "Hell" line.

In the history of the world it is unlikely there is another case on record where two people, saving for six years, kept $32.75 together and escaped bankruptcy. That is the only new thing in the rural sketch a man and woman billed as Hennings and Middleton. While the young woman is not at all bad as a slangy soubret, she does not have the voice. The sketch is not marketable for beyond the "small time." Mr. Cressy has succeeded in killing the old style rube sketches on both sides of the ocean.

Variety 24:4 (09/30/1911)