the meeting by either of us--especially not in the presence of my
aunt--and the compact was ratified according to the usual custom, my
uncle paying the necessary expenses.

In those days, we sat, some four or six of us, round a little table, on
which were placed our drinks. Now we have to balance them upon a narrow
ledge; and ladies, as they pass, dip the ends of their cloaks into them,
and gentlemen stir them up for us with the ferrules of their umbrellas,
or else sweep them off into our laps with their coat tails, saying as
they do so, "Oh, I beg your pardon."

Also, in those days, there were "chairmen"--affable gentlemen, who would
drink anything at anybody's expense, and drink any quantity of it, and
never seem to get any fuller. I was introduced to a Music Hall chairman
once, and when I said to him, "What is your drink?" he took up the "list
of beverages" that lay before him, and, opening it, waved his hand
lightly across its entire contents, from clarets, past champagnes and
spirits, down to liqueurs. "That's my drink, my boy," said he. There
was nothing narrow-minded or exclusive about his tastes.

It was the chairman's duty to introduce the artists. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he would shout, in a voice that united the musical
characteristics of a foghorn and a steam saw, "Miss 'Enerietta
Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now happear." These
announcements were invariably received with great applause by the
chairman himself, and generally with chilling indifference by the rest of
the audience.

It was also the privilege of the chairman to maintain order, and
reprimand evil-doers. This he usually did very effectively, employing
for the purpose language both fit and forcible. One chairman that I
remember seemed, however, to be curiously deficient in the necessary
qualities for this part of his duty. He was a mild and sleepy little
man, and, unfortunately, he had to preside over an exceptionally rowdy
audience at a small hall in the South-East district. On the night that I
was present, there occurred a great disturbance. "Joss Jessop, the
Monarch of Mirth," a gentleman evidently high in local request was, for
some reason or other, not forthcoming, and in his place the management
proposed to offer a female performer on the zithern, one Signorina
Ballatino.

The little chairman made the announcement in a nervous, deprecatory tone,
as if he were rather ashamed of it himself. "Ladies and gentlemen,"