“Bella-Bella,” replied the urchin. “She’s got to go on; she’s prime, she is! If you ain’t seen her you ought to. She’s put on near the last, because the swells drop in late, don’t you know. Look at ’em going in now,” and he jerked his matchbox toward several men in evening dress who were then ascending the steps. “She’s the great draw, and no wonder! You should just see her! She’s stunning, that’s what she is! Plank down yer shillin’, guvnor, you won’t be sorry; there ain’t a trapeze artist in London to beat her.”
“All right, I will,” said Seth, with an air of indifference, and, tossing the boy a penny, he went in and paid his shilling. But the shilling seats were too far from the stage to please him, and he changed into the stalls, took a cigar and a glass of whiskey-and-water, and cast his keen, cunning eyes round him.
The Palace of Amusement, as every one knows, is perhaps the most magnificently decorated place in London, and its appointments are palatial enough to startle and bewilder the countryman who sees them for the first time; but Seth’s carefully guarded countenance displayed no surprise or bewilderment, whatever he may have felt; and he sat and smoked and listened to the band of forty first-class performers, and watched the mixed audience of “swells,” counter-jumpers, and frivolous women with half-closed eyes.
Several of the gentlemen who had entered just before him had taken seats near his, or were lounging against the elaborately-gilded and painted walls with that air of long-suffering boredom which distinguishes their class, and Seth, while he gave one sharp ear to the band, kept the other open to the conversation around him.
“Just in time,” yawned one gentleman. “I suppose her ladyship’s going to perform to-night?” he said, addressing the chairman, a fat man in evening dress, with a large diamond—or something fairly resembling it—in his vast expanse of shirt front, and stones of great value—or none—in his wristbands.
“Oh, yes, my lord,” he replied, with an oily smile. “Bella’s on the spot to-night.”
“In a good humor, eh?” remarked another, with a laugh. “The last time we were here she cut up rough and wouldn’t go on.”
“That was because there wasn’t quite large enough audience for her, Sir ’Arry,” said the chairman, who appeared to know them all. “She’ll be all right to-night; the house is nearly full. Won’t you take a seat, gentlemen? Plenty of room, my lord,” and he waved a be-ringed hand toward the table.
The young lord—he was little more than a boy—glanced up at the ropes and the net above his head, and laughed.
“No, thanks,” he said. “That net doesn’t look overstrong, and much as I adore Bella-Bella, I don’t care to have her dropping on my head.”