she entered, and he watched keenly the effect of Vane's eloquent eulogy;
but apparently the actress was too deep in her epilogue for anything
else. She came in, saying, "Mum, mum, mum," over her task, and she went
on doing so. The experienced Mr. Cibber, who had divined Vane in an
instant, drew him into a corner, and complimented him on his well-timed
eulogy.

"You acted that mighty well, sir," said he. "Stop my vitals! if I did not
think you were in earnest, till I saw the jade had slipped in among us.
It told, sir--it told."

Up fired Vane. "What do you mean, sir?" said he. "Do you suppose my
admiration of that lady is feigned?"

"No need to speak so loud, sir," replied the old gentleman; "she hears
you. These hussies have ears like hawks."

He then dispensed a private wink and a public bow; with which he strolled
away from Mr. Vane, and walked feebly and jauntily up the room, whistling
"Fair Hebe;" fixing his eye upon the past, and somewhat ostentatiously
overlooking the existence of the present company.

There is no great harm in an old gentleman whistling, but there are two
ways of doing it; and as this old beau did it, it seemed not unlike a
small cock-a-doodle-doo of general defiance; and the denizens of the
green-room, swelled now to a considerable number by the addition of all
the ladies and gentlemen who had been killed in the fourth act, or whom
the buttery-fingered author could not keep in hand until the fall of the
curtain, felt it as such; and so they were not sorry when Mrs.
Woffington, looking up from her epilogue, cast a glance upon the old