"Come hup there, ye lazy fiddlers, and give us our thrip-pence worth," shouts an irate lad to the orchestra, who are scraping and rosining their instruments.
"Yes, give us moosic for our money, old bald head," shouts another young ruffian to the despised leader of the orchestra, who responds with a wave, and then we have "God Save the Queen," done after the style popular in the New Cut.
When this is over a red-headed fellow, with his arms bare and perspiring like the lower animal that he is, cries out loudly, "Now for the next varse, and give us a good chorious," and then they all commence again:
"Vith the fair sec', bless 'em, need I say—
That hi am 'number Von;'
Hits really quite a bore to me
The way the gals do run—
Not away from me—but hafter me.
Hah—you may laugh and scoff,
But I can tell yer—that the gals
Think me—Immensekoff.
Immensekoff—Immensekoff."
And so on for five mortal verses the whole mad swarm of dirty, ignorant wretches, keeping time with hands and feet until my head ached, and I went down the narrow stairs, while a number of polite young ladies inquired as I passed, "if I had been sea-sick." The descent to the lower part of the theatre was about forty-feet, down a dimly lighted stairs, and I found myself in the family circle, as it would be called in America, the seats being of planed planks without cushions, while the aisles were crowded with people, as above in the three-penny gallery.
THE "TERROR OF LONDON."
Here the admission was, I think, a shilling, and the audience was a little more select, yet not enough to cause remark from a stranger. The doorkeeper told me he could get me a seat in a private box on the stage for two shillings, and I followed him through another dirty, dark passage, my feet crushing the shells of walnuts and filberts, which here take the place of the old time peanuts.
I was solicited to buy sandwiches of a very ancient aspect by several men, and pigs' feet and sheep's trotters by a number of women, at a penny and "tuppence" apiece; and a boy with a large flat basket offered me a pint of periwinkles for "three ha'pence," "all fresh, sir;" and finally I got into the box on the stage, which gave me a very good view of the entire theatre and its sweltering audience. Pit, circle, and "three-penny" gallery were packed with human heads, tier upon tier, in a manner that seemed to defy description.
The walls were rough, and in some places but poorly papered, and in the corners of the upper gallery, flirtation, small-talk, and chaff went on so audibly that I could hear almost what was spoken, or rather cried out from the gallery, although I was at the other extremity of the building. Great anxiety was manifested to have the curtain hoisted by the unruly audience, and not a little shouting was done to make the fiddlers hurry up their overture.