Various excited groups were congregated here. One group, consisting of several very young gentlemen, a little bald-headed man with a simpering voice, and a swarthy lean man wrapt up to the throat in a large white muffler, clearly representing the fourth estate. The lean man in the muffler was holding forth with more zeal than eloquence on the personal appearance of the _débutante_. ‘Where did she come from?’ asked one of the very young gentlemen. ‘Where did Abrahams pick her up?’ ‘I’ve heard that her parents lived in Paris,’ answered the lean man, ‘and that she used to sing once, when quite a young girl, at a _café chantant_. White knows all about her, I believe.’ ‘What power she showed in the cave scene!’ said another very young gentleman. ‘Do you think so?’ the lean man said, reflectively. ‘She rather disappointed me there. And I don’t like her delivery of the blank verse.’ ‘Beastly immoral play!’ drawled the man with the bald head. ‘What the French call _scabreux?_’ ‘Why, it’s Shakespeare,’ gasped one of the very young gentlemen. ‘Are you sure of that? And if it is? Shakespeare or no Shakespeare, the licenser would suppress it if it were submitted to him now for the first time.’ ‘Oh, oh!’ groaned several voices. ‘And what is more,’ persisted the man with the bald head, ‘no manager could look at such rubbish. It’s very good poetry, and all that sort of thing, but it’s what I call a----bad play, though you fellows haven’t the pluck to say so!’ Here there was a general laugh. ‘What do you think of the Imogen?’ asked the lean man. ‘Pretty good,’ drawled, the other. ‘When I was an _attache_ in Constantinople, I once saw a woman’s hand waving out of a house on the Bosphorus. I jumped out of my boat, and went into the house, tripping an eunuch at the door who tried to prevent me. I ran from room to room till I came to a splendid open court with a fountain, and there I saw a veiled woman sitting in the sun. The moment I appeared she lifted up the veil, and showed the loveliest face I ever saw. I need not give you the sequel of the story. She had seen me at a distance, and been struck by my style of beauty. I afterwards found she was the favourite wife of the Grand Vizier. Well, she was the very image of the girl who is playing “Imogen” tonight. Poor little Schelsalmaigàr.’ ‘Was that her name?’ ‘Yes; old Muzid afterwards found out about my visits, and the cruel bowstring and sack business terminated the adventure. I tried to save her, but they found some of my Turkish letters (I write Turkish rather better than I write English) on her person. She kept them too long, in the hopes of getting some one to read them to her, for she couldn’t read herself.’ Standing close to the group the swarthy gentleman with the moustache had listened to the close with a smile as he sipped a glass of lemonade. Suddenly he felt himself touched upon the shoulder, while a hasty voice exclaimed, ‘Sutherland! is it possible!’