rprise of
the evening was yet to come. It was not nine o'clock when the conjuror
finished, and Mr. Dodgson was thinking anxiously that the party would be
back in Stokebridge long before the feast was over. Suddenly a great
pair of curtains across the end of the tent drew aside and a regular
stage was seen. Mr. Brook had obtained the services of five or six
actors and actresses from the Birmingham theatre, together with scenery
and all accessories; and for two hours and a half the audience was kept
in a roar of laughter by some well-acted farces.

When the curtain fell at last, Mr. Brook himself came in front of it. So
long and hearty was the cheering that it was a long time before he could
obtain a hearing. At last silence was restored.

"I am very glad, my friends," he said, "that you have had a happy
afternoon and evening, and I hope that another year I shall see you all
here again. I should like to say a few words before we separate. You
young men, lads and lasses, will in a few years have a paramount
influence in Stokebridge; upon you it depends whether that place is to
be, as it used to be, like other colliery villages in Staffordshire, or
to be a place inhabited by decent and civilized people. I am delighted
to observe that a great change has lately come over it, due in a great
measure to your good and kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson, who have
devoted their whole time and efforts to your welfare." The cheering at
this point was as great as that which had greeted Mr. Brook himself, but
was even surpassed by that which burst out when a young fellow shouted
out, "and Jack Simpson." During this Jack Simpson savagely made his way
out of the tent, and remained outside, muttering threats about punching
heads, till the proceedings were over. "And Jack Simpson," Mr. Brook
went on, smiling, after the cheering had subsided. "I feel sure that the
improvement will be maintained. When you see the comfort of homes in
which the wives are cleanly, tidy, and intelligent, able to make the
dresses of themselves and their children, and to serve their husbands
with decently cooked food; and in which the husbands spend their
evenings and their wages at home, treating their wives as rational
beings, reading aloud, or engaged in cheerful conversation, and compare
their homes with those of the drunkard and the slattern, it would seem
impossible for any reasonable human being to hesitate in his or her
choice between them. It is in your p