e is a
rush of smokers, but many cannot leave their seats without giving
offence to their companions, and some are too timid to fight their way
from the centre of a row; and, after all, the _entr'acte_ smoke, which
takes place in a crowd so thick that you cannot tell the flavour of your
own cigarette from that of other people, is rather irritating than
satisfying. Of course there remains the period after the theatre, but it
is comparatively brief for the man of whom we are speaking, since after
the labours of the day and the fatigue of the evening he is tired enough
to be rather anxious for sleep.

When the British householder is invited to take his womenfolk to the
theatre, the thought that he will have to make such a sacrifice affects
his judgment, a fact of which he is probably unaware. Very often it is
the determining cause of refusal, and when he thinks consciously of it,
of course he is not so foolish as to put it forward, but pleads this and
that and indeed every other cause for keeping away. Many times have men
said, "I don't care to go to the theatre unless there is something
awfully good, because one is not allowed to smoke"; and the question may
well be asked, What is offered to the man in place of his cigar or pipe?
Shakespeare, unless severely adapted, and, in fact, treated as the book
for a picturesque musico-dramatic performance, does not appeal very
movingly to _l'homme moyen sensuel_, nor do the sentimental puppet
stories which form the stock of our theatre fascinate him. A rousing
farce will serve, but then the womenfolk do not want that. They are all
for sentiment and dainty frocks which they may
imitate--unsuccessfully--and for handsome heroes and love-making and
other prettinesses which appeal to the daughters who live a kind of
second-hand life in them, and to the mothers rendered for a while young
by them, whilst paterfamilias looks on, uncomfortable in his seat,
irritated very often by draughts which his _decolletee_ dame does not
notice--till afterwards--a little curious as to the cost of the whole
affair, and after a while, in a state of semi-somnolence, thinking a
good deal of the events of the day and the Alpine attitude of the Bank
rate or the slump in Consols.

The poor dear man would be in a better humour if he were allowed his
pipe. According to the French, the plain housewife looks charming to her
husband when seen through the fumes of a good soup, and so too the plays
of Mr ---- (perh