He would have given all he possessed to have known what had passed,--when the business of the stage calling him to the front, exactly facing the box in which she sat, their eyes met, and she nodded and smiled. This was not the first time that Miss Hughes had nodded and smiled to Joseph Grimaldi, but it threw him into a state of confusion and agitation which at once deprived him of all consciousness of what he was about. He never heard that he did not finish the scene in which he was engaged at the moment, and he always supposed, in consequence, that he did so: but how, or in what manner, he never could imagine, not having the slightest recollection of anything that passed. It is singular enough that throughout the whole of Grimaldi's existence, which was a chequered one enough, even at those years when other children are kept in the cradle or the nursery, there always seemed some odd connexion between his good and bad fortune; no great pleasure appeared to come to him unaccompanied by some accident or mischance: he mentions the fact more than once, and lays great stress upon it. On this very night, a heavy platform, on which ten men were standing, broke down, and fell upon him as he stood underneath; a severe contusion of the shoulder was the consequence, and he was carried home immediately. Remedies were applied without loss of time, but he suffered intense pain all night; it gradually abated towards morning, in consequence of the inestimable virtues of a certain embrocation, which he always kept ready in case of such accidents, and which was prepared from a recipe left him by his father, which, having performed a great many cures, he afterwards gave to one Mr. Chamberlaine, a surgeon of Clerkenwell, who christened it, in acknowledgment, "Grimaldi's Embrocation," and used it in his general practice some years with perfect success. Before he was carried from the theatre, however, he had had the presence of mind to beg Mrs. Lewis to be called to him, and to request her to communicate the nature of the accident to Miss Hughes (who had quitted the box before it occurred) as cautiously as she could. This, Mrs. Lewis, who appears to have been admirably qualified for the task in which she was engaged, and to possess quite a diplomatic relish for negotiation, undertook and performed.