d the door; and made his appearance,
for the first time in his life, upon that famous stage in the records
of novelists--a British inn.

CHAPTER VI.

Now this is worshipful society.--_King John._

The room, into which Bertram now introduced himself, was spacious
beyond any thing that he had anticipated: but, spacious as it was, it
seemed barely sufficient for its different occupants. A large playbill,
hung in a very conspicuous situation, announced the play of Venice
Preserved for representation on that evening. It was now a good deal
after 10 o'clock, and the performance was over: but the Venetian
_Nobili_, in the dignified solemnity of their black dresses, were
scattered about the room in parties--or laying aside the costlier part
of their finery in a remote corner partly screened off from public
view, which had been allotted to them as a tiring room. Round about the
fire-place, in an elevated sort of _dais_ which had been railed off
into a bar, a canopy of smoke proclaimed that a festive party were
somewhere seated beneath it. On advancing a few steps further, Bertram
could distinguish their faces and arrangement. Close by the fire side
sate a huge Dutchman with a huge pipe, solemnly fixing his eyes upon
the pomp of clouds which he had created or was in the act of creating,
and apparently solacing himself with some vague images of
multiplication and division. His leaden eye showed that he was
completely rapt away from all that was passing about him: two critics
disputing at his right ear upon the relative pretensions of two
actresses,--two politicians disputing at his back on the Sinking Fund
and the Funds in general, as little disturbed his meditations as two
disputants before his face, viz. the landlord and the manager of the
theatrical company, who were sharply discussing some private point of
finance in their daily reckoning. The poor manager,--with his keen,
meagre, and anxious countenance, at this moment rendered doubly anxious
by the throes of an arithmetical computation,--seemed the antagonist
pole of the Dutchman: he was endeavouring, with little success, to
bring the night's receipts into something like a counterbalance to the
daily bill: this had just been presented by the landlord, who had
placed his bulky person immediately behind him, looked over his
shoulder, and having encircled him with his arms for the sake of
leaning with his knuckles upon the