Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day PeopleDickens, Charles
General
Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
Dickens, Charles
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and brass
buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O. P. side, is Mr.
Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His line is genteel comedy—his
father’s, coal and potato. He _does_ Alfred Highflier in the last
piece, and very well he’ll do it—at the price. The party of gentlemen
in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and
supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the _Macbeth_ of the
night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly, each
member of the party, with his feet cocked upon the cushion in front of
the box! They let them do these things here, upon the same humane
principle which permits poor people’s children to knock double knocks
at the door of an empty house—because they can’t do it anywhere else.
The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously
placed before them, are friends of the proprietor—opulent country
managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew
behind the curtain—opulent country managers looking out for recruits; a
representation which Mr. Nathan, the dresser, who is in the manager’s
interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm
upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, however, is quite
unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once.
The stout Jewess who has just entered, is the mother of the pale, bony
little girl, with the necklace of blue glass beads, sitting by her; she
is being brought up to ‘the profession.’ Pantomime is to be her line,
and she is coming out to-night, in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The
short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white face is so deeply
seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt-front is inlaid with
open-work, and embossed with coral studs like ladybirds, is the low
comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the
audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of
dupes and blackguards.
The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the wicks of the six
little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes, are being turned up, and
the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence of dirt,
and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feature in the audience
part of the house. As these preparations, however, announce the speedy
commencement of the play, let us take a peep ‘behind,’ previous to the
ringing-up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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