_Nearly everything in the ball-room is of gold: it was only with an effort that she checked herself from dabbing gold on the regal countenances. You can see that she has not passed by gin-palaces without thinking about them. The walls and furniture are so golden that you have but to lean against them to acquire a competency. There is a golden throne with gold cloths on it, and the royal seats are three golden rocking chairs; there would be a fourth golden rocking chair if it were not that_ CINDERELLA _does not want you to guess where she is to sit. These chairs are stuffed to a golden corpulency. The panoply of the throne is about twenty feet high—each foot of pure gold; and nested on the top of it is a golden reproduction of the grandest thing_ CINDERELLA _has ever seen—the private box of a theatre. In this box sit, wriggle, and sprawl the four children in their nightgowns, leaning over the golden parapet as if to the manner born and carelessly kicking nuggets out of it. They are shouting, pointing, and otherwise behaving badly, eating oranges out of paper bags, then blowing out the bags and bursting them. The superb scene is lit by four street lamps with red glass. Dancing is going on: the ladies all in white, the gentlemen in black with swords. If you were unused to royal balls you would think every one of these people was worth describing separately; but, compared to what is coming, it may be said that_ CINDERELLA _has merely pushed them on with her lovely foot. They are her idea of courtiers, and have anxious expressions as if they knew she was watching them. They have character in the lump, if we may put it that way, but none individually. Thus one cannot smile or sigh, for instance, without all the others smiling or sighing. At night they probably sleep in two large beds, one for ladies and one for gentlemen, and if one of the ladies, say, wants to turn round, she gives the signal, and they all turn simultaneously. As children they were not like this; they had genuine personal traits, but these have gradually been blotted out as they basked in royal favour; thus, if the_ KING _wipes his glasses they all pretend that their glasses need wiping, and when the_ QUEEN _lets her handkerchief fall they all stoop loyally to pick up their own_. _Down the golden steps at the back comes the_ LORD MAYOR, _easily recognisable by his enormous chain_.) LORD MAYOR. O yes, O yes, make way everyone for the Lord Mayor—namely myself. (_They all make way for him. Two black boys fling open lovely curtains._) O yes, O yes, make way every one, and also myself, for Lord Times.