ding on them; and
talked and laughed loudest during the performance; and then the Miss
Fantadlins wore always more feathers and flowers than any other ladies;
and used quizzing glasses incessantly. The first evening of my
theatre's reopening, therefore, was announced in flaring capitals on
the play bills, "under the patronage of the Honorable Mrs. Fantadlin,"

Sir, the whole community flew to arms! The banker's wife felt her
Dignity grievously insulted at not having the preference; her husband
being high bailiff, and the richest man in the place. She immediately
issued invitations for a large party, for the night of the performance,
and asked many a lady to it whom she never had noticed before. The
fashionable world had long groaned under the tyranny of the Fantadlins,
and were glad to make a common cause against this new instance of
assumption.--Presume to patronize the theatre! insufferable! Those,
too, who had never before been noticed by the banker's lady, were ready
to enlist in any quarrel, for the honor of her acquaintance. All minor
feuds were therefore forgotten. The doctor's lady and the lawyer's lady
met together; and the manufacturer's lady and the shopkeeper's lady
kissed each other, and all, headed by the banker's lady, voted the
theatre a _bore_, and determined to encourage nothing but the Indian
Jugglers, and Mr. Walker's Eidonianeon.

Alas for poor Pillgarlick! I little knew the mischief that was brewing
against me. My box book remained blank. The evening arrived, but no
audience. The music struck up to a tolerable pit and gallery, but no
fashionables! I peeped anxiously from behind the curtain, but the time
passed away; the play was retarded until pit and gallery became
furious; and I had to raise the curtain, and play my greatest part in
tragedy to "a beggarly account of empty boxes."

It is true the Fantadlins came late, as was their custom, and entered
like a tempest, with a flutter of feathers and red shawls; but they
were evidently disconcerted at finding they had no one to admire and
envy them, and were enraged at this glaring defection of their
fashionable followers. All the beau-monde were engaged at the banker's
lady's rout. They remained for some time in solitary and uncomfortable
state, and though they had the theatre almost to themselves, yet, for
the first time, they talked in whispers. They left the house at the end
of the first piece, and I never saw them afterwards.

Such was the ro