The theatre in which the emotional drama of Witt Parfitts was to be played, lacked the usual characteristics of a modern place of entertainment. It was far too high for its width and breadth; it was badly illuminated; it was draughty in winter and stuffy in summer, being completely deprived of ventilation. Had it been under the control of the County Council it would have been instantly condemned as dangerous in case of fire, for its gangways were always encumbered and its exits of a mediaeval complexity. It had no stage, no footlights, and all its seats were of naked wood except one. This unique seat was occupied by the principal player, who wore a humorous wig and a brilliant and expensive scarlet costume. He was a fairly able judge, but he had mistaken his vocation; his rare talent for making third-rate jokes would have brought him a fortune in the world of musical comedy. His salary was a hundred a week; better comedians have earned less. On the present occasion he was in the midst of a double row of fashionable hats, and beneath the hats were the faces of fourteen feminine relatives and acquaintances. These hats performed the function of 'dressing' the house. The principal player endeavoured to behave as though under the illusion that he was alone in his glory, but he failed. There were four other leading actors: Mr. Pennington, K.C., and Mr. Vodrey, K.C., engaged by the plaintiff, and Mr. Cass, K.C., and Mr. Crepitude, K.C., engaged by the defendant. These artistes were the stars of their profession, nominally less glittering, but really far more glittering than the player in scarlet. Their wigs were of inferior quality to his, and their costumes shabby, but they did not mind, for whereas he got a hundred a week, they each got a hundred a day. Three junior performers received ten guineas a day apiece: one of them held a watching brief for the Dean and Chapter of the Abbey, who, being members of a Christian fraternity, were pained and horrified by the defendants' implication that they had given interment to a valet, and who were determined to resist exhumation at all hazards. The supers in the drama, whose business it was to whisper to each other and to the players, consisted of solicitors, solicitors' clerks, and experts; their combined emoluments worked out at the rate of a hundred and fifty pounds a day. Twelve excellent men in the jury-box received between them about as much as would have kept a K.C. alive for five minutes. The total expenses of production thus amounted to something like six or seven hundred pounds a day. The preliminary expenses had run into several thousands. The enterprise could have been made remunerative by hiring for it Convent Garden Theatre and selling stalls as for Tettrazzini and Caruso, but in the absurd auditorium chosen, crammed though it was to the perilous doors, the loss was necessarily terrific. Fortunately the affair was subsidized; not merely by the State, but also by those two wealthy