n came to him that
he was not ready to act upon, if it presented the remotest likelihood.
In one of his great difficulties of obtaining more space, for audience
as well as actors, he was told that Mr. Cooke of Astley's was a man of
much resource in that way; and to Mr. Cooke he applied, with the
following result. "One of the finest things" (18th of October 1856) "I
have ever seen in my life of that kind was the arrival of my friend Mr.
Cooke one morning this week, in an open phaeton drawn by two white
ponies with black spots all over them (evidently stencilled), who came
in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle, exactly as they come
into the Ring when they draw anything, and went round and round the
centre bed of the front court, apparently looking for the clown. A
multitude of boys who felt them to be no common ponies rushed up in a
breathless state--twined themselves like ivy about the railings--and
were only deterred from storming the enclosure by the glare of the
Inimitable's eye. Some of these boys had evidently followed from
Astley's. I grieve to add that my friend, being taken to the point of
difficulty, had no sort of suggestion in him; no gleam of an idea; and
might just as well have been the popular minister from the Tabernacle in
Tottenham Court Road. All he could say was--answering me, posed in the
garden, precisely as if I were the clown asking him a riddle at
night--that two of their stable tents would be home in November, and
that they were '20 foot square,' and I was heartily welcome to 'em.
Also, he said, 'You might have half a dozen of my trapezes, or my
middle-distance-tables, but they're all 6 foot and all too low sir.'
Since then, I have arranged to do it in my own way, and with my own
carpenter. You will be surprised by the look of the place. It is no more
like the school-room than it is like the sign of the Salutation Inn at
Ambleside in Westmoreland. The sounds in the house remind me, as to the
present time, of Chatham Dockyard--as to a remote epoch, of the building
of Noah's ark. Joiners are never out of the house, and the carpenter
appears to be unsettled (or settled) for life."

Of course time did not mend matters, and as Christmas approached the
house was in a state of siege. "All day long, a labourer heats size over
the fire in a great crucible. We eat it, drink it, breathe it, and smell
it. Seventy paint-pots (which came in a van) adorn the stage; and
thereon may be beheld, Stanny, an