What! People had said that the taste for the legitimate was exploded! The answer to that was in the crowds that thronged to T. R., Hatton Garden. And then the critics went on to say that the scenery by Mr. Slapp, with wonderful moonlight effects such as had never previously been seen, was thoroughly appreciated; and that the mechanical arrangement for the appearance of Banquo's ghost amongst the unconscious Thanes was a marvel of theatrical deception. Was it Shakespeare or Slapp who drew? Buncle, a heavy, ignorant, ill-educated man, who had played fourth-rate parts with the _Dii majores_ in those "palmy days" of which we read, and who now, _faute de mieux_, found himself pitch-forked into the leading characters, thought it was Shakespeare--and Buncle! The knowing ones thought it was the novelty of the reproduction and the excellence of Slapp's scenery which caused the success; and the knowing ones were right. Shakespeare, as interpreted by Buncle, Mrs. Buncle, and Stampede--whom Buncle always took about with him to play his seconds--drew for a certain length of time. Then the audience thinned gradually, and Wuff found it necessary to supplement _King Lear_ with the _Harem Beauties_--a ballet supported by the best band of _coryphées_ in Europe; and that was a really good stroke of policy. While Buncle was lying down and dying as Lear, the club-men came trooping into the house; and Buncle's apostrophes to his dead daughter Cordelia were nearly inaudible in the creaking of boots and the settling into seats. The pit cried "Hush!" and "Shame!" but the swells did not care about the pit, and the curtain fell on Buncle thirsting for aristocratic blood. The ballet at first attracted largely. As the time for its commencement approached, the military clubs were drained of their members, who went away in a procession of hansoms from Pall Mall to Hatton Garden; and you could have counted more peers within Wuff's walls at one time than were to be found, save on special occasions, at St. Stephen's. But the ballet, after a time, ceased to draw; and Mr. Wuff could not supplement it by another, for the _coryphées_ had all returned to their allegiance to the manager of the Opera-house, whose season had just commenced. Mr. Wuff was in despair; he dared not shut the house, for he had to make up his rent, which was required with inexorable punctuality by the committee of gentlemen who owned the theatre. He must try something; but what was it to be? Wuff and his treasurer, Mr. Bond,--always known as Tommy Bond, an apple-faced, white-headed old gentleman, who had dropped into the theatrical world no one ever knew whence, and who had held a place of trust with all the great managers of the T. R., Hatton Garden, for thirty years,--were closeted together. "What's it to be, Tommy?" repeated Mr. Wuff for the twentieth time. "They've had it all round, hot and strong; and what's the caper for 'em now, I don't know."