ok at it yet; I'm a
confounded quick study, that's one comfort.'

Consoling himself with this reflection, Mr Lenville drew from his coat
pocket a greasy and crumpled manuscript, and, having made another pass
at his friend, proceeded to walk to and fro, conning it to himself and
indulging occasionally in such appropriate action as his imagination and
the text suggested.

A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place;
for besides Mr Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim
young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers
and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic
countryman--a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and
staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the infant phenomenon, was
an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who
played the calm and virtuous old men; and paying especial court to Mrs
Crummles was another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who
played the irascible old men--those funny fellows who have nephews in
the army and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to
marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a roving-looking person in
a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps,
flourishing a dress cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great
vivacity for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so
young as he had been, and his figure was rather running to seed; but
there was an air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the
hero of swaggering comedy. There was, also, a little group of three or
four young men with lantern jaws and thick eyebrows, who were conversing
in one corner; but they seemed to be of secondary importance, and
laughed and talked together without attracting any attention.

The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round the
rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss Snevellicci--who could
do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always played
some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit--glancing, from the
depths of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and affecting
to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting story to her friend Miss
Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was making up a ruff in the most
natural manner possible. There was Miss Belvawney--who seldom aspired
to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose, to