the traditions of the
Greek theatre by reserving the orchestra for the evolutions of the
chorus) of filling the orchestra with chairs: with the result that these
so-called first-class seats--being all on the same level, and that level
four feet lower than the stage--were at once the highest-priced and the
worst seats in the building. Decidedly the best seats, both for seeing
and hearing, were those of the so-called second class--the newly erected
tiers of stone. But so excellent are the acoustic properties of the
theatre, even now when the stage is roofless, that in the highest tier
of the third-class seats (temporary wooden benches filling the space not
yet rebuilt in stone in the upper third of the auditorium) all the
well-trained and well-managed voices could be clearly heard.

Naturally, the third-class seats were the most in demand; and from the
moment that the gates were opened the way to them was thronged: an acute
ascent--partly rough stairway, partly abrupt incline--which zigzagged up
the hill between the wall of the theatre and the wall of an adjacent
house and which was lighted, just below its sharpest turn, by a single
lamp pendant from an outjutting gibbet of iron. By a lucky mischance,
three of the incompetent officials on duty at the first-class
entrance--whereat, in default of guiding signs, we happened first to
apply ourselves--examined in turn our tickets and assured us that the
way to our second-class places was up that stairway-path. But we
heartily forgave, and even blessed, the stupidity of those officials,
because it put us in the way of seeing quite the most picturesque bit
that we saw that night outside of the theatre's walls: the strong
current of eager humanity, all vague and confused and sombre, pressing
upward through the shadows, showing for a single moment--the hurrying
mass resolved into individual hurrying figures--as it passed beneath the
hanging lamp, and in the same breath swept around the projecting corner
and lost to view. It looked, at the very least, treasons, conspiracies,
and mutinous outbursts--that shadowy multitude surging up that narrow
and steep and desperately crooked dusky footway. I felt that just around
the lighted turn, where the impetuous forms appeared clearly in the
moment of their disappearance, surely must be the royal palace they were
bent upon sacking; and it was with a sigh of unsatisfied longing that I
turned away (when we got at last the right direction) befo