had fallen on the _debris_ of the _dramatis personae,_ and of common
sense, they sent on an actress to turn all the sentiment so laboriously
acquired into a jest.

To insist that nothing good or beautiful shall be carried safe from a
play out into the street was the bigotry of English horseplay. Was a
Lucretia the heroine of the tragedy, she was careful in the epilogue to
speak like Messalina. Did a king's mistress come to hunger and
repentance, she disinfected all the _petites maitresses_ in the house of
the moral, by assuring them that sin is a joke, repentance a greater, and
that she individually was ready for either if they would but cry, laugh
and pay. Then the audience used to laugh, and if they did not, lo! the
manager, actor and author of heroic tragedy were exceeding sorrowful.

While sitting attendance on the epilogue Mr. Vane had nothing to distract
him from the congregation but a sanguinary sermon in five heads, so his
eyes roved over the pews, and presently he became aware of a familiar
face watching him closely. The gentleman to whom it belonged finding
himself recognized left his seat, and a minute later Sir Charles Pomander
entered Mr. Vane's box.

This Sir Charles Pomander was a gentleman of vice; pleasure he called it.
Mr. Vane had made his acquaintance two years ago in Shropshire. Sir
Charles, who husbanded everything except his soul, had turned himself out
to grass for a month. His object was, by roast mutton, bread with some
little flour in it, air, water, temperance, chastity and peace, to be
enabled to take a deeper plunge into impurities of food and morals.

A few nights ago, unseen by Mr. Vane, he had observed him in the theater;
an ordinary man would have gone at once and shaken hands with him, but