"We shall."
"Is your company a good one?"
"I think I may say it is. Go and look at our women."
"I've seen them. You've a real beauty among them. I'm not a man to beat about the bush, and you look like a man to be trusted."
"Try me."
"I will. I'll build you a theatre at the back of my hotel on the following conditions." (The proprietor of the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle Hotel dotted off the conditions on the fingers of his left hand with the forefinger of his right hand.) "You will undertake to play in no other place for three months. You will undertake to play in my theatre for six nights a week for three months, and the entertainment shall not last less than four hours. You will undertake to hand over to me every night one-fifth of the gross money received, that being the rent I shall charge you. You will undertake that you and all of you shall board and lodge at the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle, and to pay me three pounds per week per head for such board and lodging--baby not to count." He looked at his thumb with a pucker in his forehead, and finding no condition to which it could be applied, concluded abruptly by saying, "That's all."
Mr. Hart, with the mind of a general, debated for one moment, and resolved the next.
"How many people will the theatre hold?"
"A thousand," replied the enterprising hotel-keeper promptly.
It was a rough guess; he had not the slightest idea as to the size of the place required for the accommodation of the number.