with her dark eyes and hair and slight
figure, would be pretty but for a
preternaturally large and concave forehead— a
forehead that seems to argue wrong and
mismanagement somewhere beyond the inevitable
malformation of nature; next a magnificent
creation full six feet high, with flowing black
hair (or wig), a plumed hat, an imitation
point-lace collar, a half modern military, half
Elizabethan doublet, a fierce sword, trunk
hose, buckskin (imitation) tights, and a
pair of jack-boots— large, high in the thigh,
acute in the peaks, lustrous with copal
varnish or grease— a monarch pair of boots—
such boots that had you dared displace them
and they had been Bombastes', he would have
had your life in a twinkling in King Artaxomines'
time. These boots seem to oppress
their wearer with a deep and awful sense of
the responsibility they involve. They are
perchance the only pair of jack boots in the
company, and to wear them, perhaps, is as
precious a favour as it was of old to wear the
king's robe of honour. This booted man
moves with an alternate short step and stride.
His eyes are bent downward, but not in
humility— they are looking at his boots. He
has no eyes, no ears, no thought apparently
for anything beyond those nether casings. I
look at him with fear and loathing, mingled
with patriotic hatred; for I seem to recognise
in him the Emperor of Russia, and already
suspect him of nefarious designs connected
with the Tartar Bride.

Two more personages appear in succession,
and make up the effective strength of the
company. There is an old man with feeble
legs and a flaxen wig, ill-concealing a stubbly
grey head of hair. He wears a gray jerkin
with hanging sleeves; beneath which there is
a suspicion of Dirk Hatteraick's pink striped
shirt, and hose to match. Besides being
the old man of the troupe, physically and
dramatically, he is one of the orchestra likewise,
and carries a battered old flageolet, of
which the music comes out all at wrong
holes and produces dismal discord. The last
histrionic who makes himself manifest, is a
little man, who, by his particularly bandy
legs, frill, cockscomb and painted face is of the
clown, clowny— the clown I caught a glimpse
of in the waggon; and who has a habit of
rubbing his face continually with a blue
pocket handkerchief rolled up into a very
small ball, which, taking his painted face into
consideration, is, at the least, inconvenient.
The company range themselves on the platform,
and there is dead silence in the amphitheatre.
You might hear a piece of sweetstuff
drop.

I very soon find that the clown does not
belie his appearance; for he advances to the
front with the man in the wonderful turban,
and is immediately addressed by him as Mr.
Merriman and desired to be funny.

Upon which he at once stands upon his
head. Unfortunately, however, the boards
upon which he stands being loose, it occurs
to one of them to stand upon its head likewise,
upon the fulcrum and lever principle,
and Mr. Merriman is very nearly precipitated
down the inclined plane, and into the midst
of his admirers. He as suddenly recovers
himself, and makes a joke which is none
the lest happy for not having the remotest
connection with the event which has just
occurred.

"Merriman," says the turbaned Turk, in a
jaunty, off-hand manner, " have you ever
travelled?"

"All over the world," answers Merriman.

"Have you been in 'Merrikar?"

"No, not there; I said all over the world
mind."

"Well, in Afrikar, Europe, 'Stralia?"

'' No, no, I said the world."

"Well, where 'ave you been?"

Mr. Merriman scratches his head as if to
refresh his geographical reminiscences, and
after a pause, answers, "I've been in
Dumbledowndeary."

This is taken as a great joke, and is roared
at accordingly.

"Merriman," asks he of the turban again,
"what is nonsense?"

"Why," to him replies the jocoso, "to eat
vinegar with a fork's nonsense. To try to
stop the tide with a teaspoon's nonsense.
And to try to stop a woman's tongue when
she's a talking's nonsense."

This is received as even a more exquisite
witticism than the first, and is greeted with
much haw-hawing and clapping of hands by
the men, and much blushing and giggling by
the women. The little folks laugh, as it is
their happy privilege to laugh at everything
at which they don't cry.

Merriman is proceeding to make another
joke, when the Turk stops him.

"You had better, Merriman," he says,
"hinform the company that this hevening we
shall have the honour of pfromming the
Rooshian War and the Gallant Turk; or, Death,
the Danube, and the Tartar Bride."

Merriman makes the announcement with
many deliberate mistakes and transpositions
of the original text.

"As the pfrommences will be raather long,"
the Turk adds by way of rider, " we will
fust 'ave a shut dence on the outside, and
the pfrommences will then kmence in the
hinteriar. Hadmission sixpence to boxes,
and thruppence to gallery."

The shut dence then takes place. But
as the space is extremely limited on which
its evolutions are performed, the dancers
literally walk through the figures. The
clown moves his legs a great deal, but his
body not much, and is excessively active
within a confined space. The old man,
whose legs move naturally of themselves
through feebleness, is paralytically nimble,
and the young lady in white calico is
as energetic as she can be under the