ere
three--a humorist, a glutton and an honest man; traits that often caused
astonishment and ridicule, especially the last.

"May we not hope for something from Mr. Cibber's pen after so long a
silence?"

"No," was the considerate reply. "Who have ye got to play it?"

"Plenty," said Quin; "there's your humble servant, there's--"

"Humility at the head of the list," cried she of the epilogue. "Mum!
mum! mum!"

Vane thought this so sharp.

"Garrick, Barry, Macklin, Kitty Clive here at my side, Mrs. Cibber,
the best tragic actress I ever saw; and Woffington, who is as good a
comedian as you ever saw, sir;" and Quin turned as red as fire.

"Keep your temper, Jemmy," said Mrs. Woffington with a severe accent.
"Mum! mum! mum!"

"You misunderstand my question," replied Cibber, calmly; "I know your
_dramatis personae_ but where the devil are your actors?"

Here was a blow.

"The public," said Quin, in some agitation, "would snore if we acted as
they did in your time."

"How do you know that, sir?" was the supercilious rejoinder; _"you never
tried!"_

Mr. Quin was silenced. Peg Woffington looked off her epilogue.

"Bad as we are," said she coolly, "we might be worse."

Mr. Cibber turned round, slightly raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed!" said he. "Madam!" added he, with a courteous smile, "will you
be kind enough to explain to me how you could be worse!"

"If, like a crab, we could go backward!"

At this the auditors tittered; and Mr. Cibber had recourse to his
spy-glass.

This gentleman was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand,
in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and
the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in
annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his
spy-glass upon poor Peggy.

"Whom have we here?" said he. Then he looked with his spy-glass to see.
"Oh, the little Irish orange-girl!"

"Whose basket outweighed Colley Cibber's salary for the first twenty
years of his dramatic career," was the delicate reply to the above
delicate remark. It staggered him for a moment; however, he affected
a most puzzled air, then gradually allowed a light to steal into his
features.

"Eh! ah! oh! how stupid I am; I understand; you sold something besides
oranges!"

"Oh!" said Mr. Vane, and colored up to the temples, and cast a look on
Cibber, as much as to say, "If you were not seventy-three!"

His ejaculation was something so d