My seat was in the second row and comfortable enough, without being sumptuous. I had a good view of the stage and I leisurely divested myself of my overcoat, saw that my dress shirt and tie were all right, pulled down my cuffs, and cast my eyes round the house. An amateur band, consisting chiefly of ladies, was playing, and a certain amount of verve and vivacity, though not much, filled the auditorium. Clapham had by no means turned out in its thousands; in fact, it was quite easy to count the house, and I should be exaggerating if I suggested that there were more than two hundred and fifty persons in it. Subtract fifty for biased friends of the performers and take off another fifty for pure philanthropists, and that left not more than a hundred and fifty at the outside who could be supposed to have come in a critical or artistic spirit. The critics did not reveal their personality or sun themselves in the front of the stalls, as I had seen them do in proper theatres on a first night. They may have been there by stealth and in disguise; but more likely they had sent substitutes. An official in evening dress came to speak to me presently. He evidently knew that I wielded my pen for _Thespis_, and I could see that knowledge inspired his friendship. He hoped I was comfortable, and said that, after the second act, there would be whisky and soda and sandwiches going in the gentlemen’s cloak-room. He added that they had all been in fear that the leading lady would lose her mother and be unable to act. But by good chance her mother was spared and she was going to play. “Of course we had an understudy,” explained the official, who proved to be the assistant acting manager; “but no doubt you know, better than I do, what a bore it is for everybody concerned to have to fall back upon the understudies.” “For everybody but the understudies,” I answered in a knowing sort of way, and the assistant acting manager said it was deuced good, and left me. Of course the whisky and soda and sandwiches were a bribe, and I decided not to touch them, because you couldn’t be unprejudiced about people who thrust whisky and soda upon you; besides, I didn’t drink whisky. Every critic worthy of the name snatches a glass of champagne between the acts of a new play, and then comes back to his seat licking the ends of his mustache; but the management doesn’t pay for the sparkling beverage—far from it: the critic pays himself and so preserves his right of judgment untarnished. As a matter of fact, after the second act I did stroll round to see the other critics and hear if others agreed with my views of the performance. There were four obvious critics in the cloak-room, all eating and drinking with complete abandon and not saying a word about the play; and there were several other people of both sexes also eating and drinking, who might, or might not, have been critics.