"I have just had some tickets sent me for the Adelphi. There is nothing going on here worth staying for, so I shall go. Dixon will make one, and you and Hardy must make up the quartette."
"Dixon going?" asked George; "why, I thought he was such a sedate fellow, and never went to anything of the sort!"
"Neither does he, as a rule; but he has never been to the Adelphi, and he wants to go. Will you accompany us?"
"No, thank you," said George; "I told you once I did not like theatres; perhaps you recollect we discussed the point one evening?"
"We did, and you said you had never been to a theatre: you disapproved of them, without ever having had an opportunity of judging whether they were good or bad places. Now, take the opportunity."
"I am not anxious to form a judgment; and I so dislike all the associations of a theatre that it would be no pleasure for me to go."
"Complimentary, certainly!" laughed Ashton. "But I will grant you this much—there are bad associations connected with the theatres, and this is the stronghold of objectors; but we are four staid sober fellows, we shall go to our box without any bother, sit and see the play without exchanging a word with anybody beyond our own party, and then leave as soon as the performance is over. You had better say you will go, eh?"
"No, it would be very late before I got home," said George: "and I do not like keeping my mother up, more particularly as I was so very late the other evening. But what do you say, Hardy?"
"I don't know what to say," said Hardy. "I did once say to myself I would never go to a theatre; but I am not sure that there is any moral obligation why I should keep my word, when the compact rests only with myself. I have not time to consult Paley, and so I put the question to you—Can I go, seeing I have said to myself I will not?"
"Arrange it in this way," said Ashton; "both of you go, and when you get there, if you decide you have done wrong, then leave at once; or if you find that your consciences are in durance vile, and you have not patience or sufficient interest to stay and see the play out, go, and I will excuse you then with all my heart; but I won't excuse your not going. Now is your time to decide; for here comes Dixon, true to his appointment."