be a virtuous and vagabond boy. I hate to show my ankles in ragged
trowsers, but I must." (_Shows them. Applause_)

_Enter Daughter of Comic Villain_. "I love the unprincipled clerk; but
there is a sick stranger up-stairs who pokes the fire in a way that I can
hardly resist. Be firm, my heart. Shall I be untrue to my own unprincipled
-----"

_Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER CORAM is lost at sea, and
I must leave these valuable boxes in your hands for safe-keeping."
(_Leaves the boxes, and then leaves himself_.)

_Enter Sick Stranger_. "I am WALTER CORAM. Those are my boxes.
Somebody is personating me. Big thing on somebody. Let him go ahead."
(_Curtain_.)

* * * * *

_Young Lady in the Audience_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON perfectly lovely?"

_Accompanying Bostonian Youth_. "Yes; but you should see RISTORI in
_Marie Antoinette_. There is a sweetness and light about the great
tragedienne which -----"

_Heavy old Party, to contiguous Young Man_. "Don't think much of this;
do you? Now, in TOM PLACIDS's day----" _Contiguous and aggrieved Young
Man pleads an engagement and hastily goes out_.

ACT II. _Scene_ 1. _Virtuous Banker's Villa, Comic Villain,
Unprincipled Clerk, and Wealthy Heroine dining with the Banker_.