This was worse than a heavy blow at single-stick; and the mayor was the more wrath as he had no argument ready to meet it. After looking angry for a moment, a bright thought struck him. “Ay, ay, sir! You will not, I hope, teach a mayor either fact or duty. We know, sir, what the king (God bless him!) patronizes. His majesty does not patronize strollers. He goes regularly to an _established_ church, sir, and to an _established_ theatre; and so, sir, I, as mayor, support only establishments. Good heavens! what would become of the throne and the altar, if a Mayor of Sarum were to do otherwise?” As Mr. Farren did not well know, he could not readily tell; and as he stood mute, the mayor continued to pour down upon the player and his vocation, a shower of obloquy. At every allusion which he made to his predilection for amusements that were respectable and instructive, the single-stick player and his man drew themselves up, cried “_Hear! hear!_” and looked down upon the actors with an air of burlesque contempt. The actors, men and women, returned the look with a burst of uncontrollable laughter. The mayor took this for deliberate insult, aimed at himself and at what he chose to patronize. His protégés looked the more proud, and became louder than ever in their self-applauding “_Hear! hear!_” The players, the while, shrieked with laughter. Even Mr. Farren and Lizzy could not refrain from risibility, for the stick-player and his man were really members of the company. The former was Mr. Frederick Fitzmontague, who was great in _Hamlet_. His man was the ruffian in melodramas, and the clown in pantomimes, and as he did a little private business of his own by accepting an engagement from a religious society, during the dull season of the year, to preach on the highways against theatricals, Mr. Osmond Brontere was usually known by the cognomen of Missionary Jack. The magisterial refusal to license this wandering company to play in Salisbury, was followed by altercation; and altercation by riot. The multitude took part with the actors, and they hooted the mayor; and the latter, viewing poor Farren as the cause and guilty mover of all that had occurred, summarily ordered his arrest; and, in spite of all remonstrance, resistance, or loudly-expressed disgust, the manager was ultimately lodged in the cage. The mob, then, satisfied at having had a little excitement, and caring nothing more about the matter, at length separated, and repaired to their respective homes. They went all the quicker that the rain had begun to descend in torrents; and they took little notice of poor Lizzy, who went home in the dusk, weeping bitterly, and led by the hands of the matronly Ophelia and Missionary Jack.