r and suspense as--You will excuse me, I am sure,' said Nicholas,
checking himself. 'I should never speak of this, and never do, except to
those who know the facts, but for a moment I forgot myself.'

With this hasty apology Nicholas stooped down to salute the Phenomenon,
and changed the subject; inwardly cursing his precipitation, and very
much wondering what Mrs Crummles must think of so sudden an explosion.

That lady seemed to think very little about it, for the supper being by
this time on table, she gave her hand to Nicholas and repaired with a
stately step to the left hand of Mr Snittle Timberry. Nicholas had the
honour to support her, and Mr Crummles was placed upon the chairman's
right; the Phenomenon and the Master Crummleses sustained the vice.

The company amounted in number to some twenty-five or thirty, being
composed of such members of the theatrical profession, then engaged or
disengaged in London, as were numbered among the most intimate friends
of Mr and Mrs Crummles. The ladies and gentlemen were pretty equally
balanced; the expenses of the entertainment being defrayed by the
latter, each of whom had the privilege of inviting one of the former as
his guest.

It was upon the whole a very distinguished party, for independently of
the lesser theatrical lights who clustered on this occasion round
Mr Snittle Timberry, there was a literary gentleman present who had
dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as
they had come out--some of them faster than they had come out--and who
WAS a literary gentleman in consequence.

This gentleman sat on the left hand of Nicholas, to whom he was
introduced by his friend the African Swallower, from the bottom of the
table, with a high eulogium upon his fame and reputation.

'I am happy to know a gentleman of such great distinction,' said
Nicholas, politely.

'Sir,' replied the wit, 'you're very welcome, I'm sure. The honour is
reciprocal, sir, as I usually say when I dramatise a book. Did you ever
hear a definition of fame, sir?'

'I have heard several,' replied Nicholas, with a smile. 'What is yours?'

'When I dramatise a book, sir,' said the literary gentleman, 'THAT'S
fame. For its author.'

'Oh, indeed!' rejoined Nicholas.

'That's fame, sir,' said the literary gentleman.

'So Richard Turpin, Tom King, and Jerry Abershaw have handed down to
fame the names of those on whom they committed their most impudent
robberies?' said Nichol