ry long, rectangular hall, low in the ceiling in
proportion to the length, once brightly decorated, but faded, smoked and
tarnished. On the walls, in panels, between tinted pilasters of a
pseudo-Grecian design, were views of the principal towns of Germany and
Austria, the details obliterated in the upper part by smoke and in the
lower by greasy heads and hands. Around the sides, a dais held benches
and tables similar to those on the floor. At the far end was a bar for
beer and other liquors less popular, and an entrance from a main street,
screened and indirect, down steps at another level than the rear or
stage door. Where Claudius sat was a small stage with footlights and
curtain complete, and an orchestra for a miniature piano such as are
used in yachts, and six musicians; the performers sat to face the
audience respectfully in the good Old German style.

The lighting was by means of clusters of gas-jets at intervals in the
long ceiling and along the walls. The announcement of the items of
attraction appearing on the stage was made by changeable sliding cards
in framework at the sides of the stage; to the left the name of the
_scena_ was exhibited, that of the artist on the other.

When Claudius took his seat, the other places were almost all empty; but
they soon began to fill up. The majority of the spectators seemed to be
of the tradesman and workman class, with their wives and daughters, but
the stranger, who had been so surreptitiously "passed in," was not blind
to the presence of a more offensive element. There were faces as
villainous as any under the immediate command of Grandmother
"Baboushka;" and their dress was not much better. More than one dandy of
the gutter nursed the head of a club called significantly the
"lawbreaker's canes of crime," with a distant air of the fop sucking his
clouded amber knob or silver shepherd's-crook. In more than one group
were horse-copers, and their kin the market-gardeners' thieves and
country wagoners' pests, who not only lighten the loads on the way to
the city market on the road, but plunder the drivers after they receive
their salesmoney by cheating at cards.

The student, crowded in by this mixed throng, began to doubt the
providential quality of the intervention saving him from an explanation
to the police; it was very like leaping from the proverbial frying-pan
into the fire.

At this stage in his reflections, he felt that a person in the next seat
had risen and h