flogging,
perhaps, will have a still better effect."

As luck would have it, I was never, on any occasion, so slightly
punished. Keate, though I never knew him to be guilty of an absent fit
before, entirely forgot for what he was flogging me, and gave me but
the average number. The laugh was certainly on my side, when, just as
I had completed my disarranged toilet, he discovered his error.
Neither of us could forbear smiling, and he congratulated me on my
good fortune.

The detection of my next peccadillo was not followed by such baneful
effects. They were now making at Windsor Theatre great preparations
for a night, which was to be graced with the presence of his Majesty,
who had also kindly condescended to order the tragedy of "Warwick" on
the occasion. I had amused myself by going up in the day-time to
witness the rehearsals, and otherwise examine into the economy of the
stage in general. I also made myself, without any evil intent at the
time, entirely conversant with the localities of the place. To draw a
full house, Mr. Betty, once the Young Roscius, had been engaged to
personate the Earl of Warwick, and admirably he sustained it, too.
During the performance, I had crept from the gallery--here always
appropriated to the Etonians--through a door which had been purposely
made not to appear such, into a place immediately over the stage.
Across this space stretch the enormous rollers on which the scenes are
wound, but in the recess where I now stood was stored a confused heap
of theatrical lumber, such as an enormous gilt lion, a dragon, a
collection of clouds, and other curiosities. At first I conjectured
that the effect below might be heightened by the dismissal of a few of
the clouds, but I feared lest they might dislocate a neck or two. A
similar result might have occurred had I cut the ropes of the front
scene. At length, I determined merely to launch an enormous dusty
carpet on Mr. Betty's devoted head below. Finding this to be far
beyond my single strength, I procured three assistants, and, at a
given signal, we simultaneously launched it forth.

At that moment the Young Roscius and another star were fascinating the
house, when our gigantic bundle, lodging for a moment between the
rollers, gradually squeezed through them, and the next, enveloping our
victims,

"Turned to groans their roundelay."

This occasioned an uproar throughout the house, and on regaining our
seats, "the King-maker" had crep