"The Little Racketeer," the current production at the Shubert Theater, is just another musical comedy. It has little to recommend it for anything but a pleasant entertainment save a bit of excellent work by the orchestra.

The members of the ensemble assemble every once in a while, see the program for illumination on just what constitutes a while, and sing in a rather business-like fashion some good choruses that one can not remember. Queenie Smith is most of the show, as the headlines indicate, but even her contributions are not highly inspired. The fact that she can do well enough without a striking background only adds to her due of praise. The other individual parts are not badly done. The story is nothing unusual and arouses only casual interest. But then few people attend musical comedies for the stories. The music and the show are the things and in the case of the "Little Racketeer" the show is little; the music is good.

The orchestra, as has been intimated, is one of the very best ever heard in a theater pit in Boston. The instruments are very well handled and the direction of the whole leaves nothing to be desired. From a first hearing, at least, there cling no striking sections but the score as a unit is good and really worth hearing.

The customary amount of good dancing is lacking in this spectacle and this reviewer, for one, likes the defect. Too much dancing would be too much for the ensemble engaged in putting the racket across.