an names, too, asking about their respective
families, and imitating with great liveliness and accuracy the tooting
of the horns as Jem the ostler whipped the horses' cloths off, and the
carriages drove gaily away.

"A bottle of sherry, a bottle of sham, a bottle of port and a shass
caffy, it ain't so bad, hay, Pen?" Foker said, and pronounced, after all
these delicacies and a quantity of nuts and fruit had been dispatched,
that it was time to "toddle." Pen sprang up with very bright eyes, and
a flushed face; and they moved off towards the theatre, where they paid
their money to the wheezy old lady slumbering in the money-taker's box.
"Mrs. Dropsicum, Bingley's mother-in-law, great in Lady Macbeth," Foker
said to his companion. Foker knew her, too.

They had almost their choice of places in the boxes of the theatre,
which was no better filled than country theatres usually are in spite
of the "universal burst of attraction and galvanic thrills of delight"
advertised by Bingley in the play-bills. A score or so of people
dotted the pit-benches, a few more kept a kicking and whistling in the
galleries, and a dozen others, who came in with free admissions, were
in the boxes where our young gentlemen sate. Lieutenants Rodgers and
Podgers, and young Cornet Tidmus, of the Dragoons, occupied a private
box. The performers acted to them, and these gentlemen seemed to hold
conversations with the players when not engaged in the dialogue, and
applauded them by name loudly.

Bingley the manager, who assumed all the chief tragic and comic parts
except when he modestly retreated to make way for the London stars, who
came down occasionally to Chatteris, was great in the character of the
'Stranger.' He was attired in the tight pantaloons and Hessian boots
which the stage legend has given to that injured man, with a large cloak
and beaver and a hearse feather in it drooping over his raddled old
face, and only partially concealing his great buckled brown wig. He had
the stage jewellery on too, of which he selected the largest and most
shiny rings for himself, and allowed his little finger to quiver out
of his cloak with a sham diamond ring covering the first joint of the
finger and twiddling in the faces of the pit. Bingley made it a favour
to the young men of his company to go on in light comedy parts with
that ring. They flattered him by asking its history. The stage has its
traditional jewels as the Crown and all great families have. T