a rigid ceremony,
one of them inquired of Sir Richard how such an expensive train of
domestics could be consistent with his fortune. Sir Richard very
frankly confessed that they were fellows of whom he would very
willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them,
declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with
an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had
thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might
do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the
expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having
obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him
graced with a retinue of the same kind."

These little pleasantries are echoes of the halcyon days when Steele
thought Savage a very fine fellow, made him an allowance and even
proposed to become the poet's father-in-law. But the recipient of all
this favour was caddish enough to ridicule his patron, a kind friend
mentioned the fact to Sir Richard, and the knight shut his doors on
the ingrate. Let us, likewise, give the fellow his _conge_.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MIMIC WORLD

We have seen that Oldfield affected to despise tragedy, and was wont
to suggest Mistress Porter as a lady better suited than herself to the
purposes of train-bearing. And as the present chapter will be devoted
to a few of Nance's contemporaries let us linger, if only for an
instant, over the imposing memory of one whom cynical Horace Walpole
thought even finer than Garrick in certain scenes of passion. This
"ornament to human nature," as a biographer warmly called the Porter,
played her first childish part in a Lord Mayor's pageant during
the reign of James II., appearing as the Genius of Britain, and
incidentally falling under the august notice of another genius of
Britain, the great Mr. Betterton. That worthy man regarded the little
girl with prophetic eyes, saw in her a wealth of undeveloped talent,
and was soon instructing the chit in the mysteries of dramatic art.
Sometimes the actress-in-miniature revolted, poor mite ("she should
have been in the nursery, the minx," says some practical reader) and
then noble Thomas would give vent to an awful threat. She must speak
and act as she was directed, or else--horrible thought--the child
should be thrown into the basket of an orange-girl and buried under
one of the vine leaves which hid the luscious fruit! And w