junior branches with brisket of beef, liberally
seasoned with mustard, and Mr. Whelks
was refreshing his physical nature with a
cold potato, regarding it in the light of an
egg, and using his clasp-knife as an egg-spoon.
Every opportunity was afforded him of gratifying
taste for stimulating liquors—so
prejudicial to the true interests of the drama for in
this, as in most other theatres in London, there
are drinking-bars in every available corner; and,
at the end of the acts, white-aproned potmen
went round with cans of porter. The audience
was quiet and orderly; albeit it was to be
inferred, from placards affixed to the walls of the
gallery, that it was not always so. Those
placards intimated, in very large letters, that
any persons WHISTLING (this very large), or
otherwise disturbing the performance, would be
instantly expelled by the police. On this occasion,
however, Mr. Whelks and his tribe
behaved with the greatest propriety, and seemed
to be earnestly bent upon tne true delights of
the drama.

Glancing at the synopsis of the characters in
the Watercress Girl, we were sorry that we had
not arrived in time to see that thrilling piece.
"John Leicester, a man of fair outside but foul
within, not old in years, but old in guilt and sin,
the unnatural husband, conspiring against the
lives of his wife and infant child;" "Octavius
Croft, cunning and cruel, though he wears a
smile, and serves your friend to rob you all the
while, and bad specimen of a rascally lawyer;"
"Ada Leicester, young, fair, and pallid, on the
morning light, her young life darkened by a
villain's blight." Miserable Jenny, "an outcast
and a wanderer, who always suffers." Biddy
Blare, "bending in form, with cracking voice,
and harsh, she seemed to be a thing to shudder at
and pass;" Bob Nobody, of whom it is said in
the bill that "none asked him where he went
or whence he came, he walked the world, a man
without a name (a mystery afterwards
explained)." Pharah, Reuben, and Mike, thieves
of the Night and Woods; and Curly Bill, Apple
Jack, Brassy Harry, Gaffy Ned, &c., "costermongers,
ready and rough, of the Namesclophaters,
who go their rounds with cabbage and 'taters."
Surrounded by all these doubly-dyed villains,
we felt assured that the young, fair, and pallid
Ada, and "the market's pride, of blossoms there
the queen, the little watercress girl, Alice
Green," must have had a sad time of it, though
we felt equally assured that their virtue had
come off triumphant against all odds.

"N.B. At the conclusion of the first piece
an interval of ten minutes for refreshments,
which can be obtained at the bar at the same
prices as outside the theatre."

And now, the refreshments having been
consumed, the curtain rises upon "the great
French drama, in three acts, entitled the
Black Doctor." A version (for Mr. Whelks)
of a play once wonderfully acted. Scene,
the romantic abode of the Black Doctor.                                                                   Enter the Black Doctor with a chocolate-
coloured face, showing his teeth and the whites                                                       of his eyes in an alarming manner. He is
suffering, apparently from the stomach-ache, but
in reality from "luvv " of Pauline de la Reynerie.
He, a Creole, has dared to luvv with a
great deal of ardour and a great deal of v, the
daughter of the white man. Into the romantic
abode, which is somewhere on the mountains
of the Isle of Bourbon, comes, at this moment,
the daughter of the white man, appropriately
attired in a white muslin ball-dress. The Black:
Doctor has another fearful paroxysm of stomach-
ache, caused, as it appears, by the restraint
which he is obliged to impose upon his feelings.
He is consequently not very intelligible; but it
seems to be an understood thing between him
and Pauline de la Reynerie, the wealthy heiress,
that they are to meet at the Lovers' Grotto in
St. Michael's Bay at three o'clock. When
Pauline departs, and after the Black Doctor has
had another internal spasm, a shot is heard.
The Doctor rushes off with a chopper, and
immediately brings in a spruce young gentleman
(the haughty noble of the play, as you can see
by his ruffles and jewelled breast-pin), who has
been attacked by a hooded snake. The Doctor
washes the young man's wounded hand in a
bowl of water, and binds it up with a white
pocket-handkerchief, which leads the young
man to remark that his preserver has performed
"a most superb amputation;" and further, that
if he had not been rescued from the snake,
"many an eye would have been dimmed with
tears that day, for the untimely fate of the
Chevalier de St. Luce." "Ha!" exclaims the
Black Doctor, with a terrible start, "the man
she luvvs! He will be her husband, and I have
saved him!" We might have known that it
was not for nothing that the Black Doctor
brought in a gun with him. When the Chevalier
departs, the Doctor takes up the gun and
points it at his retiring rival. When he is
about to draw the trigger he is moved to look
at the portrait of his mother, and when he has
looked at the portrait of his mother he abandons
his murderous design. He has another fit of the
colic. He recovers a little, and makes a fearful
resolve. Pauline de la Reynerie shall be his.
"If not in this life," he says, "in death we
will be united." By which Mr. Whelks is led
to expect that the Black Doctor is going to do
something dreadful in the Lovers' Grotto at
three o'clock.

A front scene brings on a comic tailor and a
comic valet, the comic tailor arrayed in a
complete suit of blue and white check of the bed-
curtain pattern, and the comic valet staking all
his comicality on a very red nose. Their
humours consist in simulating drunkenness in a
most inexperienced manner—creditable to them
as men, but not as artists—and in knocking
against each other, to the groat delight of Mr.
Whelks be it said, and particularly to the delight
of .Master Whelks, until the carpenters are ready
to reveal the Lovers' Grotto, when the two comic
gentlemen tumble off. The Lovers' Grotto is a
lonely place by the sad—very sad—sea vaves,
with a rock in the centre, which Mr. Whelks's