alleries, nor the cocoanut shies. It was not the
arrangements of the beersellers, which were formidably Bacchic.
It was not the boxing-booths, where adventurous youths could have
teeth knocked out and eyes smashed in free of charge. It was not the
monstrosity-booths, where misshapen and maimed creatures of both sexes
were displayed all alive and nearly nude to anybody with a penny to
spare. What Mr Snaggs and the ministers of religion objected to was the
theatre-booths, in which the mirror, more or less cracked and tarnished,
was held up to nature.

Mr Snaggs's objection was professional. He considered that he alone was
authorized to purvey drama to the town; he considered that among all
purveyors of drama he alone was respectable, the rest being upstarts,
poachers, and lewd fellows. And as the dissenting ministers gazed at Mr
Snaggs's superb moleskin waistcoat, and listened to his positive brazen
voice, they were almost convinced that the hated institution of the
theatre could be made respectable and that Mr Snaggs had so made it. At
any rate, by comparison with these flashy and flimsy booths, the Blood
Tub, rooted in the antiquity of thirty years, had a dignified, even a
reputable air--and did not Mr Snaggs give frequent performances of
Cruickshanks' _The Bottle_, a sermon against intemperance more
impressive than any sermon delivered from a pulpit in a chapel? The
dissenting ministers listened with deference as Mr Snaggs explained to
them exactly what they ought to have done, and what they had failed to
do, in order to ensure the success of their campaign against play-acting
in the Fair; a campaign which now for several years past had been
abortive--largely (it was rumoured) owing to the secret jealousy of the
Church of England.

"If ony on ye had had any gumption," Mr Snaggs was saying fearlessly to
the parsons, "ye'd ha' gone straight to th' Chief Bailiff and ye'd
ha'--Houch!" He made the peculiar exclamatory noise roughly indicated by
the last word, and spat in disgust; and without the slightest ceremony
of adieu walked ponderously away up the slope, leaving his sentence
unfinished.

"It is remarkable how Mr Snaggs flees from before my face," said a neat,
alert, pleasant voice from behind the three parsons. "And yet save that
in my unregenerate day I once knocked him off a stool in front of his
own theayter, I never did him harm nor wished him anything but good....
Gentlemen!"

A rather small, slight man of a