The actors gathered in groups and looked askant.
“Gadso,” he continued, “who is manager, I should like to know! Nell would introduce her whole trade here if she could. Every orange-peddler in London will set up a stand in the greenroom at the King’s, next we know. Out with you! This is a temple of art, not a marketplace. Out with you!”
He seized Moll roughly in his anger and almost hurled her out at the door. He would have done so, indeed, had not Nell entered at this moment from the stage. Her eye caught the situation at a glance.
“Oh, blood, Iago, blood!” she exclaimed, mock-heroically, then burst into the merriest laugh that one could care to hear. “How now, a tragedy in the greenroom! What lamb is being sacrificed?”
Hart stood confused; the players whispered in expectation; and an amused smile played upon the features of my Lord Buckingham at the manager’s discomfiture. Finally Hart found his tongue.
“An old comrade of yours at orange-vending before you lost the art of acting,” he suggested, with a glance at Moll.
“By association with you, Jack?” replied the witch of the theatre in a way which bespoke more answers that wisdom best not bring forth.
“ENEMIES TO THE KING–BEWARE!”