without thinking any one part of it necessary, tho' I seem'd to
approve, I could not help now and then breaking in upon his delight
with the impertinent question of--_But, Master, where are your
actors_?"

* * * * *

This exhibition of a spirit so commonplace and inartistic proved too
much for Cibber. Perhaps he might have pardoned it had there been
no salary owing him, for your greatest apostle of the drama will
sometimes do a good deal of winking at glaring inconsistencies when
a money _quid pro quo_ looms up in the distance. Here was a case,
however, where the _quid pro quo_ loomed not at all, and the author of
the "Careless Husband" became correspondingly disgusted. I told him
(Rich) I came to serve him at a time when many of his best actors had
deserted him; that he might now have the refusal of me; but I could
not afford to carry the compliment so far as to lessen my income by
it; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be advanced, or
the payment of my former sallary made certain for as many days as we
had acted the year before. No, he was not willing to alter his former
method; but I might chuse whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs
who had left him.

* * * * *

"When I found him, as I thought, so insensible, or impregnable, I
look'd gravely in his face, and told him--He knew upon what terms I
was willing to serve him, and took my leave."

* * * * *