“’Tis an old saw, Master Hart,” he replied: “‘He laughs best who laughs last.’”
As he spoke, Nell’s orange-cry rang out again above the confusion and the fun. She was still at it. Moll was finding vengeance and money, indeed, though she dwelt upon her accumulating possessions through eyelashes dim with tears.
“It’s near your cue, Mistress Nell,” cried out the watchful Dick at the stage-door.
“Six oranges left; see me sell them, Moll,” cried the unheeding vender.
“It’s near your cue, Mistress Nell!” again shouted the call-boy, in anxious tones.
“Marry, my cue will await my coming, pretty one,” laughed Nell.
The boy was not so sure of that. “Oh, don’t be late, Mistress Nell,” he pleaded. “I’ll buy the oranges rather than have you make a stage-wait.”
“Dear heart,” replied Nell, touched by the lad’s solicitude. “Keep your pennies, Dick, and you and I will have a lark with them some fine day. Six oranges, left; going–going–” She sprang into the throne-chair, placed one of the smallest feet in England impudently on one of its arms and proceeded to vend her remaining wares from on high, to the huge satisfaction of her admirers.
The situation was growing serious. Nell was not to be trifled with. The actors stood breathless. Hart grew wild as he realized the difficulty and the fact that she was uncontrollable. King and Parliament, he well knew, could not move her from her whimsical purpose, much less the manager of the King’s.
“What are you doing, Nell?” he pleaded, wildly. “You will ruin the first night. His Majesty in front, too! Dryden will never forgive us if ‘Granada’ goes wrong through our fault.”