While these orders were being carried
out, my master resumed his discourse.

"Gentlemen," he said, "to return in the
interim to this question of the effect of the
vulgar poison known as dog's-bane, upon
the common dog; I am prepared to show
you how erroneous is the general impression
that the greater the size of the animal, the
greater will be his power of resisting the
action of this deadly herb. I have proved
by the fourteen dogs that I have already
destroyed, that dog's-bane is not merely an
ignorant, groundless title for a common
plant (as asserted by Canis Familiaris, and
many others), but that it is the most nauseous
and effective poison that can be administered
to the whole canine-race."

Another murmur of approval followed this
speech, still joined by the clatter of wine-glasses,

"Let us understand you, distinctly, doctor,"
said a very mild gentleman in the room,
who appeared to be taking notes; "you say
a large dog will expire under an equal
dose of dog's-bane, earlier than a smaller
dog?"

"I do," returned the doctor, proudly;
"and to carry out my invariable plan of
experiment, I have provided a small black-and-tan
terrier, and a large specimen of the
mixed Newfoundland and shepherd breed,
upon both of which it is my intention to
operate, before your eyes."

Alarmed as I was at the danger of my
position, I could not help indulging in
reflections upon nice distinctions; and as I
had learned how fine was the line which
divided suicide from an obstinate running
into fatal danger, I was now anxious to
know why my two former tormentors were
punished by an offended law, while this little
knot of half-employed doctors, without any
secrecy, could destroy a hundred animal lives
for the sake of a crotchety theory, and be
protected by the broad shield of cold-blooded
and pretended science.

While I was occupied with these thoughts,
I heard a faint gurgling sound, which I presumed
came from my small companion, the
black-and-tan terrier, as he swallowed the
fatal dose. My master then came towards
me with a funnel and a goblet containing a
dark liquid; and I endeavoured to soften
his heart by a piteous, appealing look. My
effort was thrown away upon a pompous,
self-sufficient, shirt-frilled, attitudinising smatterer
of science: the funnel was inserted
in my half-opened mouth, by the side of
the gagging-block; the horrid draught was
poured down my parched throat; my heart
sickened, as the fumes of a hundred druggists'-shops
arose to my brain; my eyes
closed, and I seemed to fall headlong through
the earth.

Ill, I had been—very ill—and weak, I remained,
without a doubt, lying upon my bed
in my own room in the country, attended by
my doctor and my old housekeeper. The cold
I had caught in the duck-pond had turned
to brain-fever, and I had been long delirious.
The first use I made of my slowly returning
strength, was to put a little more humanity
into my field-sports; to change my rod and
gun for a ball and a bat, and to make a
bowling-green and a cricket-ground of unrivalled
excellence upon my estate; to which
all the lads of the country are always welcome.

               MY MODEL THEATRE.

EVERYTHING depends upon management.
Put talent by itself, and what is it? Put
capital by itself, and what is that? Put
talent and capital together, and what can they
do without management?

I am the manager of the Gloriosa Theatre.
I have no unrivalled stars, no tremendous
successes, no last appearances, no performances
by particular desire displayed upon the
bills; my arrangements are securely made in
another, and a more substantial, direction.

Next to a theatre given up, in Passion
Week, to an orrery and an astronomical lecturer,
the most melancholy picture in the
world is a house with empty boxes, and a
few people huddled together for warmth in
the exact centre of the pit. There is one
obvious remedy for this which will at once
strike the most uuinventive mind with the
force of an inspiration. Paper—orders—free
admissions? No. Paper audiences are cold,
unimpassioned, fretful, patronising: nothing,
in fact, if not critical. Their latent power of
quiet stage damnation is something awful.
Not only do they look what they are, but three
or four free admissions will spoil them for life.
They will come to consider the inside of a
theatre, like a situation in Her Majesty's
Treasury;—a place that any persons can get
for nothing, if they only know how, when,
and where to apply for it. They will never
pay at the doors again as long as they
live. These hastily-collected, sour-visaged,
fastidious, ill-dressed people are never seen
in the Gloriosa Theatre, their places being
occupied by a hundred or more of the regular
stage supernumeraries, engaged at any cost,
who are carefully dressed in the theatrical
wardrobe of private dresses, and then judiciously
spread through the half-empty house.
There, they act in divisions, under the eye
and orders of their leaders, in exactly the
same way as they are regulated behind the
curtain; and one of them is, at all times,
found equal to any half-dozen of the general
public promoted from the pit to a private
box by a suddenly received pass-ticket from
a bewildered manager.

In the company of the Gloriosa Theatre,
as in every other company, there are many
minor performers who cannot be employed
upon the stage every night in the week, or