come
to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue
surtout, clean collar, and white trousers, for half an hour, and then
shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes: who has to boast night after
night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound
a-week and his boots to find; to talk of his father's mansion in the
country, with a dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the New
Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich
heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is in the
family way, and out of an engagement?

Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long
face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of his
boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who does
the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates,
landlords, and so forth.

By the way, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some
piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. Fathers are
invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the hero
or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain rose,
usually commencing with 'It is now nineteen years, my dear child, since
your blessed mother (here the old villain's voice falters) confided you
to my charge. You were then an infant,' &c., &c. Or else they have to
discover, all of a sudden, that somebody whom they have been in constant
communication with, during three long acts, without the slightest
suspicion, is their own child: in which case they exclaim, 'Ah! what do I
see? This bracelet! That smile! These documents! Those eyes! Can I
believe my senses?--It must be!--Yes--it is, it is my child!'--'My
father!' exclaims the child; and they fall into each other's arms, and
look over each other's shoulders, and the audience give three rounds of
applause.

To return from this digression, we were about to say, that these are the
sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinising, outside the
stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley's they are always more
numerous than at any other place. There is generally a groom or two,
sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men in
checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and carrying,
perhaps, under one arm, a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a piece
of old newspaper. Some years ago we u