an honest livelihood which he displayed
in hunting for orders. When I could not get any
paper, and I had any pocket-money, I paid.
Many are the two shillings I have economised
for a place in the gallery, to see Mr. Farren and
Mrs. Glover in the Love Chase, or Mr.
Macready and Miss Helen Faucit in Virginius.
There are few boys but would cheerfully give
up their dinner or their bed to be able to go to
the play. Being poor, and not exactly seeing
my way to an estate in Somersetshire
or the embassy to Samarcand, I was not, I
fear, in those days exempt from the passion of
envy. I envied Pilchard, with his perennial
private boxes. Pilchard was then my patron,
though he occasionally borrowed one pound
three and sixpence from my mamma. I envied
the greengrocers and tobacconists so liberally
provided with pit orders by the acting management.
I envied the ruddy children of the Duke
of York's School and the Licensed Victuallers'
Asylum, who, at Christmas and Easter, were
hospitably invited to witness the pantomimes
and spectacles gratuitously, and were presented,
in addition, with buns and seed-cake. I envied
the critics of the newspapers who could walk in
and out of every theatre in London, and could
insist upon front rows, and be haughty to the
boxkeepers without giving them sixpence. How,
with cold glazed basilisk eyes those boxkeepers
would freeze the hearts of little boys when they
came in with orders for two, and brought their
grown-up sister with them! There was such
a Cerberus, with such eyes, but with a face like
that of a petrified codfish, at the old Olympic.
He never could find the key to open the door
of the box, until I had found my last poor little
sixpence, or had borrowed one from my sister.
I was always afraid he would say that it was
after seven, or that the house was full. Well
do I remember his sepulchral "Like a bill, sir?"
for latent in his speech I seemed to read, "I
call you sir, because I want your sixpence;
but I know you to be a contemptible young cub,
and, but for my greed of gain, I would chuck
yer down them stairs." A horrible race, ghouls,
in short, and vampires. They are always
promising to die out, but, the praiseworthy efforts
of Mr. Webster and Mr. Fechter notwithstanding,
the bloodsucking boxkeeper does not die.

The Being, however, whom I envied most was
the renter. Surely, I thought, he must be the
happiest man alive. The renter of Drury Lane
or Covent Garden Theatre in a golden age, like
the poet, was born. So, at least, I thought.
Long years since he had emptied out his moneybags,
and bought an actual and visible piece of
Drury Lane or Covent Garden Theatre. Was
"paper" scarce, or was it a drug in the market,
it mattered nothing to him. He was invulnerable
both to the caprices of managers and the
exigencies of that season of taboo when the free
list was suspended, the public press excepted.
He was the privileged one, the dweller on the
threshold, the alumnus of the penetralia; the
adept, the initiated grand and past master of
dramatic illuminati; the fortunate one who
could go to the play for nothing whenever he liked.
There were legends current among us boys that
the renter, even when the theatre was closed, had
a right to sit in the empty boxes, monarch of all
he surveyed; that the stage doorkeeper had
instructions never to stop a renter; that he
could claim a portion of the twelfth cake and
the bowl of bishop bequeathed by solemn will
and testament as an annual regale to the
frequenters of the green room of at least one
patent theatre. I remember an old gentleman,
popularly called Romeo Coates, being pointed
out to me as a renter, possessing untold shares.
It was said that he likewise owned the greater
part of Waterloo-bridge. Twice happy man, to
be free of the stalls of old Drury and entitled
to pass untaxed from Wellington-street to the
Waterloo-road. As I grew older, it happened
that the British drama sensibly declined. It
has since given up the ghost entirely, and
come to life again, but once more threatens
dissolution. They say, when at its lowest ebb,
renters' shares were to be had cheap. I remember
one being sold at Garraway's, I think—it
was when the drama had reached the wild beast
phase, and before it got to the trained dogs
and monkeys—for three guineas. Goodness
knows that I had not sixty-three shillings to
spare in those days; but could I have earned,
or begged, or borrowed the money, I should
have gone down to Garraway's and had a bid
for the precious share.

Are there any renters now-a-days? Is there
any annual twelfth night regale in the green
room anywhere? Are there any patent theatres?
Is Pilchard alive, or has he retired to
his last private box the box that is made of
elm, and covered with cloth, and studded with
nails, and screwed down? Is there any " paper"
going about beyond Overend and Gurney's,
and the debentures of the London, Chatham,
and Dover Railway? Are there any little
boys who yet take their sisters to the play, and
tremble before boxkeepers, or who, when they
are in funds, pay two shillings to see Ruy Blas or
the Dead Heart? I doubt not but there are.
"The earth is rich in man and maid," and ever
will be, I hope. The old haunts, the old cheap
pleasures, exist; but it is we who have fallen
away from them, not they that have fallen away
from us.

I may say, conscientiously, at this present
writing, that I detest theatrical entertainments;
that I am never taken to the play but by
fierce entreaty, not unmingled with force; that
I never sit down in the stalls without reluctance;
nor endure the performance without agony; nor
leave the horrible mephitic gas-choked oven of
a place, without delight. I do not know my
way through any stage-doors now; a new
generation of stage doorkeepers has arisen who
know me not. I have not been to a rehearsal,
or into a green room, for years, and, save when
I am compelled by that same entreaty mingled
with force, I never ask any theatrical
authorities for orders. Quite divorced from the
smell of the lamps, and the sawdust, and the