s
inscribed in enormous characters--'First appearance of the unrivalled
Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane!'

'Dear me!' said Nicholas, 'I know that lady.'

'Then you are acquainted with as much talent as was ever compressed into
one young person's body,' retorted Mr Crummles, rolling up the bills
again; 'that is, talent of a certain sort--of a certain sort. "The Blood
Drinker,"' added Mr Crummles with a prophetic sigh, '"The Blood Drinker"
will die with that girl; and she's the only sylph I ever saw, who could
stand upon one leg, and play the tambourine on her other knee, LIKE a
sylph.'

'When does she come down?' asked Nicholas.

'We expect her today,' replied Mr Crummles. 'She is an old friend of Mrs
Crummles's. Mrs Crummles saw what she could do--always knew it from the
first. She taught her, indeed, nearly all she knows. Mrs Crummles was
the original Blood Drinker.'

'Was she, indeed?'

'Yes. She was obliged to give it up though.'

'Did it disagree with her?' asked Nicholas.

'Not so much with her, as with her audiences,' replied Mr Crummles.
'Nobody could stand it. It was too tremendous. You don't quite know what
Mrs Crummles is yet.'

Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did.

'No, no, you don't,' said Mr Crummles; 'you don't, indeed. I don't, and
that's a fact. I don't think her country will, till she is dead. Some
new proof of talent bursts from that astonishing woman every year of her
life. Look at her--mother of six children--three of 'em alive, and all
upon the stage!'

'Extraordinary!' cried Nicholas.

'Ah! extraordinary indeed,' rejoined Mr Crummles, taking a complacent
pinch of snuff, and shaking his head gravely. 'I pledge you my
professional word I didn't even know she could dance, till her last
benefit, and then she played Juliet, and Helen Macgregor, and did the
skipping-rope hornpipe between the pieces. The very first time I saw
that admirable woman, Johnson,' said Mr Crummles, drawing a little
nearer, and speaking in the tone of confidential friendship, 'she
stood upon her head on the butt-end of a spear, surrounded with blazing
fireworks.'

'You astonish me!' said Nicholas.

'SHE astonished ME!' returned Mr Crummles, with a very serious
countenance. 'Such grace, coupled with such dignity! I adored her from
that moment!'

The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an abrupt
termination to Mr Crummles's eulogium. Almost immediately afterwards,