On the left of the chairman sate the manager, a middle-aged man, with grey hair and a melancholy face; on the right Miss Brunel, and next to her a young man of the name of Will Anerley, a friend of Count Schönstein. Then followed several members of the company, an elderly little woman who officiated as Miss Brunel’s guardian, two or three critics, and a young man who spoke to nobody, but kept his eyes intently fixed upon a charming _soubrette_ (with whom he had quarrelled some days before) who was wickedly flirting with Mercutio. There was no lack of jest and talk down both sides of the table, for the wine-glasses were kept well filled; and occasionally there rang out, clear and full, the mellifluous laughter of the Nurse—a stout, big, red-faced woman, who had a habit of using her pocket handkerchief where a table-napkin might have been more appropriate—as she cracked her small jokes with Benvolio, who sate opposite to her. Then Friar Lawrence, who had thrown aside his robe and become comic, happened to jolt a little champagne into Lady Capulet’s lap; and the angrier she grew over his carelessness, the more did the people laugh, until she herself burst out with a big, good-natured guffaw. Meanwhile the small clique at the upper end of the table was engaged in a conversation by itself, Count Schönstein appealing to the manager vehemently: "Was I not right in begging you to give the public Miss Brunel’s ’Juliet?’ There never was such a triumph, Miss Brunel; I assure you, you have taken London by storm. And with the public satisfied, will the critics object? You will not see a dissentient voice in the papers on Monday morning. What do you say to that, Mr. Helstone?" The man whom he addressed had forsaken the cluster of his brother critics, and was busily engaged in amusing the pretty _soubrette_, whom he had entirely drawn away from poor Mercutio. "Why," he said, with a faint smile, apparently bent upon puzzling the gorgeous-looking gentleman who had imprudently interrupted him, "I should be sorry to see such unanimity, for Miss Brunel’s sake. Conscientious journalism, like every conscientious journalist, knows that there are two sides to every question, and will do its best to write on both. The odds will be the truth." "Do you mean to tell me," asked the Count, somewhat pompously, "that you have no more conscience than to advocate different things in different papers?" "If I write what I know on one side of a subject in one paper, and write up the other side in another paper, I free myself from a charge of suppressing truth; and I——" Whereupon the _soubrette_, with the brown curls and the wicked blue eyes, pulled his sleeve and made him upset a claret glass. "What a clumsy creature you are," she whispered. "And what is the use of talking to that ridiculous old fool? Tell me, do you think Miss Brunel handsome?" "I think she has the face of a woman of genius," he said, with a glance of genuine admiration.