could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she wore) in the lower gallery,
where she once more had the opportunity of sitting and looking at her
beloved actor performing a principal character in a piece. As for Theo,
she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather not be
present, nor had I any such command to give, for, if things went wrong,
I knew that to see her suffer would be intolerable pain to myself, and
so acquiesced in her desire to keep away.

Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I flatter myself, able
to bear good or evil fortune without disturbance, I myself, after taking
a light dinner at the Bedford, went to the theatre a short while before
the commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there, until the
defeat or victory was decided. I own now, I could not help seeing which
way the fate of the day was likely to turn. There was something
gloomy and disastrous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss
Pritchard had the headache: the barber who brought home Hagan's wig
had powdered it like a wretch: amongst the gentlemen and ladies in
the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very
flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who
himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the
insolence to say to me, "For Heaven's sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get
a glass of punch at the Bedford, and don't frighten us all here by your
dismal countenance!"

"Sir," says I, "I have a right, for five shillings, to comment upon your
face, but I never gave you any authority to make remarks upon mine."
"Sir," says he in a pet, "I most heartily wish I had never seen your
face at all!" "Yours, sir!" said I, "has often amused me greatly; and
when painted for Abel Drugger is exceedingly comic"--and indeed I
have always done Mr. G. the justice to think that in low comedy he was
unrivalled. I made him a bow, and walked off to the coffee-house,
and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentleman, when he
apologised to me, at a nobleman's house where we chanced to meet. I said
I had utterly forgotten the circumstance to which he alluded, and that,
on the first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were flurried
alike. And added, "After all, there is no shame in not being made for
the theatre. Mr. Garrick--you were." A compliment with which he appeared
to be as well pleased as I intended he should.

Fidus Achates ran over to me a