Miraculous escape--Another of those distressing accidents which too
often lead to a melancholy catastrophe took place on Wednesday evening
last. A party of four adventurous gentlemen, who had resolved on
visiting the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, after a quiet dinner at their
club, proceeded to that edifice, and, under the direction of a guide,
actually penetrated the labyrinths to the lowest box on the opposite
side from that at which they entered. Having achieved this feat, and
feasted their eyes upon the scenery thus set before them, one of them
announced his intention of attempting to get out of the theatre alone.
His companions sought to dissuade him from this foolhardy exploit; but,
flushed, it is supposed, with an extra half-pint of St. Estephe, the
traveller, a remarkably fine young man, to whom his friends were not in
the least attached, departed on the perilous enterprise. He ascended
eleven staircases, descended fourteen, and, having gone backwards and
forwards through twenty-two of the passages which come from nowhere and
lead to nothing, in this most wonderfully constructed building, he made
the appalling discovery that he had lost his way.
With the true Anglo-Saxon courage, he continued to explore undauntedly,
and at one period went down deep into the bowels of the earth, where,
far above his head, he could distinctly hear the trampling of feet, and
where, in the darkness, he stumbled upon certain whitish objects which
may have been either the skeletons of other lost travellers, or else
property busts and statues. At length, overcome by terror and thirst, he
rushed upwards, and continued to mount until he reached the dizzy height
where the air was so intensely rarified as to smell of oranges and
gingerbeer, and where, he states, he could distinctly hear the voice of
MR. GUSTAVUS BROOKE recommending MISS FEATHERSTONE to go to a nunnery.
His sufferings at this period were most acute, and his despairing
efforts to open every door he saw were agonizing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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