The dramatist in those days had to reckon with his audience. Gallery and Pit took an interest in his work such as Galleries and Pits no longer take. I recollect witnessing the production of a very blood-curdling melodrama at, I think, the old Queen’s Theatre. The heroine had been given by the author a quite unnecessary amount of conversation, so we considered. The woman, whenever she appeared on the stage, talked by the yard; she could not do a simple little thing like cursing the Villain under about twenty lines. When the hero asked her if she loved him she stood up and made a speech about it that lasted three minutes by the watch. One dreaded to see her open her mouth. In the Third Act, somebody got hold of her and shut her up in a dungeon. He was not a nice man, speaking generally, but we felt he was the man for the situation, and the house cheered him to the echo. We flattered ourselves we had got rid of her for the rest of the evening. Then some fool of a turnkey came along, and she appealed to him, through the grating, to let her out for a few minutes. The turnkey, a good but soft-hearted man, hesitated. “Don’t you do it,” shouted one earnest Student of the Drama, from the Gallery; “she’s all right. Keep her there!” The old idiot paid no attention to our advice; he argued the matter to himself. “’Tis but a trifling request,” he remarked; “and it will make her happy.” “Yes, but what about us?” replied the same voice from the Gallery. “You don’t know her. You’ve only just come on; we’ve been listening to her all the evening. She’s quiet now, you let her be.” “Oh, let me out, if only for one moment!” shrieked the poor woman. “I have something that I must say to my child.” “Write it on a bit of paper, and pass it out,” suggested a voice from the Pit. “We’ll see that he gets it.” “Shall I keep a mother from her dying child?” mused the turnkey. “No, it would be inhuman.” “No, it wouldn’t,” persisted the voice of the Pit; “not in this instance. It’s too much talk that has made the poor child ill.” The turnkey would not be guided by us. He opened the cell door amidst the execrations of the whole house. She talked to her child for about five minutes, at the end of which time it died. “Ah, he is dead!” shrieked the distressed parent. “Lucky beggar!” was the unsympathetic rejoinder of the house. Sometimes the criticism of the audience would take the form of remarks, addressed by one gentleman to another. We had been listening one night to a play in which action seemed to be unnecessarily subordinated to dialogue, and somewhat poor dialogue at that. Suddenly, across the wearying talk from the stage, came the stentorian whisper— “Jim!” “Hallo!” “Wake me up when the play begins.” This was followed by an ostentatious sound as of snoring. Then the voice of the second speaker was heard— “Sammy!” His friend appeared to awake. “Eh? Yes? What’s up? Has anything happened?”