A Mistaken Friendship: Misinformation in the Eckhoff article from Victoria by Sarah Cole As you probably remember, the January 1991 issue of Victoria included an article about Gilbert and Sullivan, entitled "A Lyrical Friendship", by Sally Eckhoff. The article had a lot of pretty pictures with it, and gave the MGS a plug. Anyway, a couple of months later, I was talking with someone about G&S and the article came up in the conversation. She was kind of surprised I hadn't commented on the amount of misinformation in it, and finally said, "Well, Sarah, didn't you read it?" Well, no, I didn't, I'm ashamed to admit. I just looked at the pictures and noticed that the MGS address that was listed was the wrong one. I went home and read it, and now I see what she meant: there are a lot of things wrong with it. We don't like to nitpick, but those G&S novices who have read the article shouldn't be misinformed, either, so here we go. Wiser heads than mine could probably find more misunderstandings in the arti- cle than I have here, but at least it's a start. Well, let's see. I had thought the attempt of the board of directors of the Opera Comique (original producers for H.M.S. Pinafore) to take the scenery by force described in the article took place before a performance, not while it was in progress, but according to Andrew Goodman's Gilbert and Sullivan at Law (East Brunswick, N.J.: Associated University Press, 1983), the gang of "roughs" did try to steal it between the acts. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde did not don a sandwich board to advertise Patience. According to Leslie Bailey, in Gilbert and Sullivan; Their Lives and Times, during the run of the opera, [The Sporting Times] had printed a rumour that Richard D'Oyly Carte intended to send Wilde to America 'as a sandwich man for Patience.' It was half true. Carte, still running his lecture agency, had booked Wilde for an American tour, and he wrote Helen Lenoir, who was in New York managing his interests there: ". . .I told [Wilde] he must not mind my using a little bunkum to push him in New York. You must deal with it when he arrives." Accordingly, Wilde turned up