altogether, he was a puzzle to his neighbours in the stalls, as well as to certain fair women in the boxes, who levelled their opera-glasses at him with a pertinacity which might have made him uncomfortably self-conscious had he looked up. Only he did not look up; he leaned back in his seat with a slightly listless air, studied his programme intently, and appeared half asleep, owing to the way in which his eyelids drooped, and the drowsy sweep of his lashes. The irrepressible American girl almost forgot _Hamlet_, so absorbed was she in staring at him, in spite of the _sotto-voce_ remonstrances of her decorous mother, who sat beside her,--and presently, as if aware of, or annoyed by, her scrutiny, he lifted his eyes, and looked full at her. With an instinctive movement she recoiled,--and her own eyes fell. Never in all her giddy, thoughtless little life had she seen such fiery, brilliant, night-black orbs,--they made her feel uncomfortable,--gave her the “creeps,” as she afterwards declared;--she shivered, drawing her satin opera-wrap more closely about her, and stared at the stranger no more. He soon removed his piercing gaze from her to the stage, for the now great “Play scene” of _Hamlet_ was in progress, and was from first to last a triumph for the actor chiefly concerned. At the next fall of the curtain, a fair dissipated-looking young fellow leaned over from the third row of stalls, and touched the white-haired individual lightly on the shoulder. “My dear El-Râmi! You here? At a theatre? Why, I should never have thought you capable of indulging in such frivolity!” “Do you consider _Hamlet_ frivolous?” queried the other, rising from his seat to shake hands, and showing himself to be a man of medium height, though having such peculiar dignity of carriage as made him appear taller than he really was. “Well, no!”--and the young man yawned rather effusively, “To tell you the truth, I find him insufferably dull.” “You do?” and the person addressed as El-Râmi smiled slightly. “Well,--naturally you go with the opinions of your age. You would no doubt prefer a burlesque?” “Frankly speaking, I should! And now I begin to think of it, I don’t know really why I came here. I had intended to look in at the Empire--there’s a new ballet going on there--but a fellow at the club gave me this stall, said it was a ‘first-night,’ and all the rest of it--and so----”