of Bulgaria in a liquorless cup, vainly thirsting
meanwhile, for a pint of mild porter
from the adjacent hostelry.  Deep are his
retainers in the enjoyment of Warden pies
and lusty capons, while their too ofter empty
interiors cry dolorously for three penn'worth of
cold boiled beef.  Liberal is he also of broad
florins, and purses of moidores, accidentally
drawing, perchance, at the same time, a
Lombardian debenture for his boots from the
breast of his doublets.  The meat is a sham,
and the wine a sham, and the money a sham;
but are there no other shams, oh, brothers
and sisters! besides those of the footlights?
Have I not dined with my legs under sham
mahogany, illuminated by sham wax-lights?
Has not a sham hostess helped me to sham
boiled turkey?  Has not my sham health
been drunk by sham friends?  Do I know
no haughty Hospodar of Hungary myself?

There is one piece, and one piece only, on
the stage, in which a real banquet — a genuine
spread — is provided. That piece is "No
Song, No Supper." However small may be
the theatre — however low, the state of the
finances — the immemorial tradition is
respected, and a real leg of mutton graces the
board. Once, the chronicle goes, there was a
heartless monster, in property-man shape, who
substituted a dish of mutton chops for the
historical gigot. Execration, abhorrence,
expulsion followed his iniquitous fraud, and he
was, from that day, a property-man accursed.
Curiously enough, while the leg of mutton in
"No Song, No Supper," is always real, the
cake, introduced in the same piece, is as
invariably a counterfeit — the old stock wooden
cake of the theatre. When it shall be known
why waiters wear white neckcloths, and dustmen
shorts and ankle-jacks, the proximate
cause of this discrepancy will, perhaps, be
pointed out.

To return to the property-room of the
Theatre Royal, Hatton Garden. Mr. Gorget,
the property "master," as he is called, is
working with almost delirious industry. He
has an imperial crown on his head (recently
gilt — the crown, not the head — and placed
there to dry), while on the table before him
lies a mass of modelling clay, on which his
nimble fingers are shaping out the matrix of
a monstrous human face, for a pantomimic
mask. How quickly, and with what facility
he moulds the hideous physiognomy into
shape — squeezing the eyelids, flattening the
nose, elongating the mouth, furrowing the
cheeks! When this clay model is finished, it
will be well oiled, and a cast taken from it in
plaster of Paris. Into this cast (oiled again)
strips of brown paper, well glued and sized,
will be pasted, till a proper thickness is
obtained. When dry, the cast is removed,
and the hardened paper mask ready for
colouring. At this latter process, an assistant,
whose nose and cheeks are plentifully enriched
with Dutch metal and splashes of glue, is at
work. He is very liberal with rose pink to
the noses, black to the eyebrows, and white
to the eye. Then Mrs. Gorget, a mild little
woman, who has been assiduously spangling
a demon's helmet, proceeds to ornament the
masks with huge masses of oakum and horse-
hair, red, brown, and black, which are destined
to serve as their coiffure. Busily other assistants
are painting tables, gilding goblets, and
manufacturing the multifarious and bewilderingly
miscellaneous articles required in the
" comic business " of a pantomime : the
sausages which the Clown purloins, the bustle
he takes from the young lady, the fish, eggs,
poultry, warming-pans, babies, pint pots,
butcher's trays, and legs of mutton, incidental
to his checkered career.

Others besides adults are useful in the
property-room. A bright-eyed little girl, Mr.
Gorget's youngest, is gravely speckling a
plum-pudding; while her brother, a stalwart
rogue of eleven, sits on a stool with a pot full
of yellow ochre in one hand, and a brush in
the other, with which he is giving a plentiful
coat of bright yellow colour to a row containing
a dozen pairs of hunting boots. These
articles of costume will gleam to-night on the
legs and feet of the huntsmen of his highness
the Hospodar, with whom you are already
acquainted. Their wearers will stamp their
soles on the merry green-sward — ha, ha!—
waving above their heads the tin porringers,
supposed to contain Rhine wine or Baerische
beer.

Mr. Gorget will have no easy task for the
next three weeks. He will have to be up early
and late until " Fee-fo-fum " is produced. The
nightly performances have, meanwhile, to
be attended to, and any new properties
wanted must be made, and any old ones
spoilt must be replaced, in addition to what is
required for the pantomime. And something
more than common abilities must have abiding
place in a property-man, although he does
not receive uncommonly liberal remuneration.
He must be a decent upholsterer, a carpenter,
a wig-maker, a painter, a decorator, accurate
as regards historical propriety, a skilful
modeller, a facile carver, a tasteful
embroiderer, a general handy man and jack-of-all-
trades. He must know something of
pyrotechnics, a good deal of carving and gilding,
and a little of mechanics. For this he gets,
perhaps, fifty shillings a-week.

Let us come away from the property room,
giving a glance into that grim, cavernous,
coal-holey place on the left, where all the
broken-up, used-out, properties are thrown,
and is a sort of limbo of departed pantomimes;
and peeping curiously also into the room,
where, on racks and on hooks, are arranged
the cuirasses, muskets, swords, spears and
yeomanry helmets, which form the armoury
of the theatre. Time presses, and we
must have a look at the proceedings in the
wardrobe.

Mr. Easter is busily stitching, with many
other stitchers (females) all of a row. His