“O, it’s true!” she cried; “he has written to ask leave; but for heaven’s sake don’t say so!”
I gave her my ready promise, for I believed not a syllable of the matter; but I would not tell her that.
A ROYAL VISIT TO THE THEATRE: JAMMED IN THE CROWD.
We went to town not only for the Drawing-room on the next day, but also for the play on this Wednesday night,[322] and the party appointed to sit in the queen’s private box, as, on these occasions, the balcony-box opposite to the royals is called, dined with Mrs. Schwellenberg,—namely, Mrs. Stainforth, Miss Planta, Mr. de Luc, and Mr. Thomas Willis.
When we arrived at the playhouse[323] we found the lobby and all the avenues so crowded, that it was with the utmost difficulty we forced our way up the stairs. It was the first appearance of the good king at the theatre since his illness.
When we got up stairs, we were stopped effectually: there was not room for a fly; and though our box was not only taken and kept, but partitioned off, to get to it was wholly impracticable.
Mr. Willis and Miss Planta protested they would go down again, and remonstrate with Mr. Harris, the manager; and I must own the scene that followed was not unentertaining. Mrs. Stainforth and myself were fast fixed in an angle at the corner of the stairs, and Mr. de Luc stood in the midst of the crowd, where he began offering so many grave arguments, with such deliberation and precision, every now and then going back in his reasoning to correct his own English, representing our right to proceed, and the wrong of not making way for us, that it was irresistibly comic to see the people stare, as they pushed On, and to see his unconscious content in their passing him, so long as he completed his expostulations on their indecorum.
Meanwhile, poor Mrs. Stainforth lost her cloak, and in her loud lamentations, and calls upon all present to witness her distress (to which, for enhancing its importance, she continually added, “Whoever has found it should bring it to the Queen’s house”), she occupied the attention of all upon the stairs as completely as it was occupied by Mr. de Luc for all in ‘the passages: but, alas! neither the philosophic harangue of the one, nor the royal dignity of the other, prevailed; and while there we stood, expecting an avenue to be formed, either for our eloquence or our consequence, not an inch of ground did we gain, and those who had neither made their way, and got on in multitudes.