ple in his chin you could put a marrow-fat pay
in.'

'Practice,' resumed Puddock, I need not spell his lisp, 'study--time to
devote--industry in great things as in small--there's the secret.
_Nature_, to be sure--'

'Ay, Nature, to be sure--we must sustain Nature, dear Puddock, so pass
the bottle,' said Devereux, who liked his glass.

'Be the powers, Mr. Puddock, if I had half your janius for play-acting,'
persisted O'Flaherty, 'nothing i'd keep me from the boards iv
Smock-alley play-house--incog., I mean, of course. There's that
wonderful little Mr. Garrick--why he's the talk of the three kingdoms as
long as I can remember--an' making his thousand pounds a week--coining,
be gannies--an' he can't be much taller than you, for he's contimptably
small.'

'I'm the taller man of the two,' said little Puddock, haughtily, who had
made enquiries, and claimed half an inch over Rocius, honestly, let us
hope. 'But this is building castles in the air; joking apart, however, I
do confess I should dearly love--just for a maggot--to play two
parts--Richard the Third and Tamerlane.'

'Was not that the part you spoke that sympathetic speech out of for me
before dinner?'

'No, that was Justice Greedy,' said Devereux.

'Ay, so it was--was it?--that smothered his wife.'

'With a pudding clout,' persisted Devereux.

'No. With a--pooh!--a--you know--and stabbed himself,' continued
O'Flaherty.

'With a larding-pin--'tis written in good Italian.'

'Augh, not at all--it isn't Italian, but English, I'm thinking of--a
pilla, Puddock, you know--the _black_ rascal.'

'Well, English or Italian--tragedy or comedy,' said Devereux, who liked
Puddock, and would not annoy him, and saw he was hurt by Othello's
borrowing his properties from the kitchen; 'I venture to say you were
well entertained: and for my part, Sir, there are some characters'--(in
farce Puddock was really highly diverting)--'in which I prefer Puddock
to any player I every saw.'

'Oh--ho--ho!' laughed poor little Puddock, with a most gratified
derisiveness, for he cherished in secret a great admiration for
Devereux.

And so they talked stage-talk. Puddock lithping away, grand and
garrulous; O'Flaherty, the illiterate, blundering in with sincere
applause; and Devereux sipping his claret and dropping a quiet saucy
word now and again.

'I shall never forget Mrs. Cibber's countenance in that last scene--you
know--in the "Orphan"--Monimia _you_ know, Devereux.' And the ta