We enter another carpenter's shop, smaller
but on the same level, and occupying a space
above the horse-shoe ceiling of the audience
part of the theatre. A sort of martello of
wood occupies the centre of this apartment,
its summit going through the roof. This is
at once the ventilator, and the "chandelier
house " of the theatre. If we open a small
door, we can descry, as our eyes become
accustomed to the semi-darkness, that it is
floored with iron, in ornamented scroll-work,
and opening with a hinged trap. We can
also see the ropes and pulleys, to which are
suspended the great centre chandelier, and
by which it is hauled up every Monday
morning to be cleaned. More carpenters are
busily at work, at bench and trestles, sawing,
gluing, hammering. Hark ! we hear a noise
like an eight-day clock on a gigantic scale
running down. They are letting down a pair
of flats in the painting-room. Let us see
what they are about in the painting-room
itself.

Pushing aside a door, for ever on the swing,
we enter an apartment, somewhat narrow,
if taken in comparison with its length, but
very lofty. Half the roof, at least, is skylight.
A longitudinal aperture in the flooring
traverses the room close to the wall. This is
the " cut," or groove, half a foot wide, and
seventy feet in depth, perhaps, in which
hangs a screen of wood-work, called a
"frame." On this frame the scene to be
painted is placed; and, by means of a
counter-weight and a windlass, is worked up
and down the cut, as the painter may require;
the sky being thus as convenient to his hand,
as the lowest stone or bit of foliage in the
foreground. When the scene is finished, a
signal is given to " stand clear " below, and a
bar in the windlass being removed, the frame
slides with immense celerity down the cut
to the level of the stage. Here the
carpenters remove the flats, or wings, or whatever
else may have been painted, and the
empty frame is wound up again into the
painting-room. Sometimes, instead of a cut, a
"bridge " is used. In this case the scene itself
remains stationary, and the painter stands on
a platform, which is wound up and down by
a windlass as he may require it — a ladder
being placed against the bridge if he wishes
to descend without shifting the position of
his platform. When the scene is finished, a
trap is opened in the floor, and the scene
slung by ropes to the bottom. The " cut"
and frame are, it is needless to say, most
convenient, the artist being always able to
contemplate the full effect of his work, and
to provide himself with what colours, or
sketches, he may need, without the trouble
of ascending and descending the ladder.

Mr. Brush, more bespattered than ever,
with a " double tie " brush in his hand, is
knocking the colour about, bravely. Five or
six good men and true, his assistants, are also
employed on the scene he is painting —the
fairy palace of Fee-fo-fum, perchance. One
is seated at a table, with something very like
the toy theatres of our younger days, on
which we used to enact that wonderful
" Miller and his Men," with the famous
characters (always in one fierce attitude of
triumphant defiance, we remember) of Mr. Park,
before him. It is, in reality, a model of the
stage itself ; and the little bits of pasteboard
he is cutting out and pasting together form
portions of a scene he is modelling " to scale "
for the future guidance of the carpenter.
Another is fluting columns with a thin brush
called a " quill tool," and a long ruler, or
" straight-edge." Different portions of the
scene are allotted to different artists, according
to their competence, from Mr. Brush, who
finishes and touches up everything, down to
the fustian-jacketed whitewasher, who is
" priming " or giving a preparatory coat of
whiting and size to a pair of wings.

If you are at all curious to know how the
brilliant scenes you see at night are painted,
you may watch the whole process of a pair of
flats growing into a beautiful picture, under
Mr. Brush's experienced hands. First, the
scene, well primed, and looking like a gigantic
sheet of coarse cartridge paper on a stretcher,
is placed on the frame; then, with a long
pole, cleft at the end, and in which is stuck
a piece of charcoal, Mr. Brush hastily scrawls
(as it seems) the outline of the scene he is
about to paint. Then, he and his assistants
"draw in " a finished outline with a small
brush and common ink, which, darkening as
it dries, allows the outline to shine through
the first layers of colour. Then, the white-
washer " labourer," as he is technically called,
is summoned to " lay in" the great masses of
colour, sky, wall, foreground, &c., which he
does with huge brushes. Then, the shadows
are "picked in " by assistants, to whom enters
speedily Mr. Brush, with a sketch in one
hand and brushes in the other, and he finishes
—finishes, too, with a delicacy of manipulation
and nicety of touch which will rather surprise
you — previously impressed as you may
have been with an idea that scenes are
painted with mops, and that scenic artists
are a superior class of house-painters. Stay,
here is the straight line of a cornice to be
ruled from one part of the scene to the
other, a space fifty feet wide, perhaps. Two
labourers, one at either end, hold a string
tightly across where the desired line is to be.
This string has been well rubbed with
powdered charcoal, and, being held up in some
part, for a moment, between the thumb and
finger, and then smartly vibrated on to the
canvas, again leaves a mark of black charcoal
along the whole length of the line, which
being followed by the brush and ink, serves
for the guide line of the cornice. Again, the
wall of that magnificent saloon has to be
covered with an elaborate scroll-work
pattern. Is all this outlined by the hand, think
you ? No; a sheet of brown paper, perforated