thing needful--as the guilty Thane saw the dagger, sir--you understand. And when the Phenomenon had vanished and gone, as I was told, to America, where I now wish I was myself, acting Rolla at New York or elsewhere, to a free and enlightened people--then, sir, the Mania grew on me still stronger and stronger. There was a pride in it, sir, a British pride. "I said to this faithful Hag: 'What--shall I not have the York because that false child has deserted me? Am I not able to realise a Briton's ambition without being beholden to a Phenomenon in spangles?' Sir, I took the York! Alone I did it!" "And," said Losely, feeling a sort of dreary satisfaction in listening to the grotesque sorrows of one whose condition seemed to him yet more abject than his own--"And the York Theatre alone perhaps did you." "Right, sir," said Rugge--half-dolorously, half-exultingly. "It was a Grand Concern, and might have done for the Bank of England! It swallowed up my capital with as much ease, sir, as I could swallow an oyster if there were one upon that plate! I saw how it would be, the very first week--when I came out myself, strong--Kean's own part in the Iron Chest --Mortimer, sir; there warn't three pounds ten in the house--packed audience, sir, and they had the face to hiss me. 'Hag,' said I to Mrs. Gormerick, 'this Theatre is a howling wilderness.' But there is a fascination in a Grand Concern, of which one is the head--one goes on and on. All the savings of a life devoted to the British Drama and the production of native genius went in what I may call--a jiffey! But it was no common object, sir, to your sight displayed--but what with pleasure, sir (I appeal to the Hag), Heaven itself surveyed!--a great man struggling, sir, with the storms of fate, and greatly falling, sir, with --a sensation! York remembers it to this day! I took the benefit of the Act--it was the only benefit I did take--and nobody was the better for it. But I don't repine--I realised my dream: that is more than all can say. Since then I have had many downs, and no ups. I have been a messenger, sir--a prompter, sir, in my own Exhibition, to which my own clown, having married into the tragic line, succeeded, sir, as proprietor; buying of me when I took the York, the theatre, scenery, and properties, sir, with the right still to call himself 'Rugge's Grand Theatrical Exhibition,' for an old song, sir--Melancholy. Tyrannised over, sir--snubbed and bullied by a creature dressed in a little brief authority; and my own tights--scarlet--as worn by me in my own applauded part of 'The Remorseless Baron.' At last, with this one faithful creature, I resolved to burst the chains--to be free as air--in short, a chartered libertine, sir. We have not much, but thank the immortal gods, we are independent, sir--the Hag and I--chartered libertines! And we are alive still--at which, in strict confidence, I may own to you that I am astonished."