ors do generally manage to
carry out their plans for the management of rebellious youth, however
injured the latter may feel. Pippo wound himself up in solemn dignity
and silence when he understood that it was ordained that he should
proceed to the play with John Tatham. And the pair had got half way to
Drury Lane--or it may have been the Lyceum, or the Haymarket, or any of
half-a-dozen other theatres, for here exact information fails--before he
condescended to open his lips for more than Yes or No. But Philip's
gloom did not survive the raising of the curtain, and he had forgotten
all offences and had taken his companion into favour again, and was
talking to Uncle John between the acts with all the excitement of a
country youth to whom a play still was the greatest of novelties and
delights, when he suddenly saw a change come over John Tatham's
countenance and a slight bow of recognition directed towards a box,
which made Philip turn round and look too. And there was the old witch
of the carriage, and, what was more interesting, the girl with the keen
eyes, who looked out suddenly from the shade of the draperies, and fixed
upon Philip--Philip himself--a look which startled that young hero much.
Nor was this all; for later in the evening, after another act of the
play, some one else appeared in the same box, and fixed the dark and
impassive stare of a long pair of opera-glasses upon Philip. It amused
him at first, and afterwards it half frightened him, and finally made
him very angry. The gazer was a man, of whom, however, Philip could make
nothing out but his white shirt front and his tall stature, and the long
black tubes of the opera-glass. Was it at him the man was looking, or
perhaps at Uncle John? But the boy thought it on the whole unlikely that
anybody should stare in that way at anything so little out of the
ordinary as Uncle John.

"I say," he said, in the next interval, "who is that fellow staring at
us out of your old lady's box?"

"Staring at the ladies behind us, you mean," said John. "Pippo, do you
think we could make a rush for it the moment the play's over? I've got
something to look over when I get home. Are you game to be out the very
first before the curtain's down?"

"Certainly I'm game," said Philip, delighted, "if you wish it, Uncle
John."

"Yes, I wish it," said the other, and he put his hand on the boy's
shoulder as the act finished and the characters of the piece drew
together for the fina