played the irascible old men--those funny fellows who have nephews in
the army and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to
marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a roving-looking person in
a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps,
flourishing a dress cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great
vivacity for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so
young as he had been, and his figure was rather running to seed; but
there was an air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the
hero of swaggering comedy. There was, also, a little group of three or
four young men with lantern jaws and thick eyebrows, who were conversing
in one corner; but they seemed to be of secondary importance, and
laughed and talked together without attracting any attention.

The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round the
rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss Snevellicci--who could
do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always played
some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit--glancing, from the
depths of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and affecting
to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting story to her friend Miss
Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was making up a ruff in the most
natural manner possible. There was Miss Belvawney--who seldom aspired
to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose, to
stand with one leg bent, and contemplate the audience, or to go in and
out after Mr Crummles in stately tragedy--twisting up the ringlets of
the beautiful Miss Bravassa, who had once had her likeness taken 'in
character' by an engraver's apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up
for sale in the pastry-cook's window, and the greengrocer's, and at the
circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the announce bills
came out for her annual night. There was Mrs Lenville, in a very limp
bonnet and veil, decidedly in that way in which she would wish to be if