should turn out awkward. I should feel more at home, perhaps.'

'True,' said the manager. 'Perhaps you would. And you could play up to
the infant, in time, you know.'

'Certainly,' replied Nicholas: devoutly hoping that it would be a very
long time before he was honoured with this distinction.

'Then I'll tell you what we'll do,' said Mr Crummles. 'You shall study
Romeo when you've done that piece--don't forget to throw the pump
and tubs in by-the-bye--Juliet Miss Snevellicci, old Grudden the
nurse.--Yes, that'll do very well. Rover too;--you might get up Rover
while you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler. You can easily
knock them off; one part helps the other so much. Here they are, cues
and all.'

With these hasty general directions Mr Crummles thrust a number of
little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and bidding his
eldest son go with him and show where lodgings were to be had, shook him
by the hand, and wished him good night.

There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in Portsmouth, and
no difficulty in finding some that are proportionate to very slender
finances; but the former were too good, and the latter too bad, and they
went into so many houses, and came out unsuited, that Nicholas seriously
began to think he should be obliged to ask permission to spend the night
in the theatre, after all.

Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small rooms up three pair of
stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, at a tobacconist's shop, on the