took up the "list of beverages" that lay before him, and, opening it,
waved his hand lightly across its entire contents, from clarets, past
champagnes and spirits, down to liqueurs. "That's my drink, my boy,"
said he. There was nothing narrow-minded or exclusive about his
tastes.

It was the chairman's duty to introduce the artists. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he would shout, in a voice that united the musical
characteristics of a foghorn and a steam saw, "Miss 'Enerietta
Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now happear." These
announcements were invariably received with great applause by the
chairman himself, and generally with chilling indifference by the
rest of the audience.

It was also the privilege of the chairman to maintain order, and
reprimand evil-doers. This he usually did very effectively,
employing for the purpose language both fit and forcible. One
chairman that I remember seemed, however, to be curiously deficient
in the necessary qualities for this part of his duty. He was a mild
and sleepy little man, and, unfortunately, he had to preside over an
exceptionally rowdy audience at a small hall in the South-East
district. On the night that I was present, there occurred a great
disturbance. "Joss Jessop, the Monarch of Mirth," a gentleman
evidently high in local request was, for some reason or other, not
forthcoming, and in his place the management proposed to offer a
female performer on the zithern, one Signorina Ballatino.

The little chairman made the announcement in a nervous, deprecatory
tone, as if he were rather ashamed of it himself. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he began,--the poor are staunch sticklers for etiquette: