awn the landlord a penny: and he says it's time
you was payin' what's doon i' the book." The senate broke up amidst
the uproarious laughter of the audience.

Upon our early stage a kind of biscuit--a "marchpane"--was consumed by
the players when they required to eat upon the stage. In "Romeo and
Juliet" one of the servants says: "Good thou, save me a piece of
marchpane." In Marston's "What you Will" occurs the passage:

Now work the cooks, the pastry sweats with slaves,
The marchpanes glitter.

And in Brome's "City Wit" Mrs. Pyannet tells Toby Sneakup: "You have
your kickshaws, your players' marchpanes--all show and no meat."

Real macaroni in "Masaniello," and real champagne in "Don Giovanni,"
in order that Leporello may have opportunities for "comic business" in
the supper scene, are demanded by the customs of the operatic stage.
Realism generally, indeed, is greatly affected in the modern theatre.
The audiences of to-day require not merely that real water shall be
seen to flow from a pump, or to form a cataract, but that real wine
shall proceed from real bottles, and be fairly swallowed by the
performers. In Paris, a complaint was recently made that, in a scene
representing an entertainment in modern fashionable society, the
champagne supplied was only of a second-rate quality. Through powerful
opera-glasses the bottle labels could be read, and the management's
sacrifice of truthfulness to economy was severely criticised. The
audience resented the introduction of the cheaper liquor as though
they had themselves been constrained to drink it.

As part also of the modern regard for realism may be noted the
"cooking scenes" which have frequently figured in recent plays. The
old conjuring trick of making a pudding in a hat never won more
admiration than is now obtained by such simple expedients as frying
bacon or sausages, or broiling chops or steaks, upon the stage in
sight of the audience. The manufacture of paste for puddings or pies
by one of the _dramatis personae_ has also been very favourably
received, and the first glimpse of the real rolling-pin and the real
flour to be thus employed has always been attended with applause. In a
late production, the opening of a soda-water bottle by one of the
characters was generally regarded as quite the most impressive effect
of the representation.

At Christmas-time, when the shops are so copiously supplied with
articles of food as to suggest a notion that the