where
Killigrew drew portraits of Dr. Johnson on the tablecloth and placated
the head-waiter by telling him how famous he, Killigrew, was going to be
and how valuable the tablecloth would consequently be in fifty years'
time. Ishmael enjoyed that dinner. He was unused to stimulants, but
having a naturally good head was delightfully sharpened in sense and
appreciation by them, while his stronger stomach did not pay him back
next day as Killigrew's invariably did. Carminow was full of stories,
all, needless to say, of a sanguinary nature; Killigrew capped them, or
tried to, by would-be immoral tales of Paris; and Ishmael said very
little, but, with his deadly clarity of vision for once working
beneficently, sat there aware how young and somehow rather lovable they
were through it all, while he himself, whom they were obviously
treating as so so much younger in the ways of the world, felt old
compared with them. The only thing he did not fully realise was just how
young that feeling itself was.

After dinner they went, as Killigrew had suggested, to the theatre--a
shabby little place to look at, though the resort of all the bloods, who
crowded stalls and stage door. Killigrew laughingly informed Carminow
that Ishmael had never met an actress in his life, and in reply to
Carminow's half-mocking commiseration, Ishmael answered gaily that he
had never even been to the theatre, except to a penny gaff that once
visited Penzance. It was indeed with a secret tingling that he now found
himself seated in a box. He brought to the theatre the freshness of the
child who goes to his first pantomime, and was unashamedly aware of the
fact. The smell of the place, the heat--for the gas made the air
vibrant--the very tawdriness of the hangings and gilding, all thrilled
him, because they were, as Killigrew would have said, so "in the
picture." When the curtain went up he settled himself to enjoyment.

Killigrew, more interested by the performers than what they represented,
leant back in the box and kept up a running commentary in a low voice.
"There never was a more Oriental thing invented than the crinoline," he
observed, nodding towards a group of dancers blowing as lightly as balls
of thistledown over the stage, slim ankles twinkling below their
inflated skirts of misty whiteness; "I'm not trying to be epigrammatic,
I mean it. Watch those girls there ... did you ever see such sway, such
slope--I can't find the exact word for it? Each l