Nearly everything in the ball-room is of gold: it was only with an effort that she checked herself from dabbing gold on the regal countenances. You can see that she has not passed by gin-palaces without thinking about them. The walls and furniture are so golden that you have but to lean against them to acquire a competency. There is a golden throne with gold cloths on it, and the royal seats are three golden rocking chairs; there would be a fourth golden rocking chair if it were not that CINDERELLA does not want you to guess where she is to sit. These chairs are stuffed to a golden corpulency. The panoply of the throne is about twenty feet high—each foot of pure gold; and nested on the top of it is a golden reproduction of the grandest thing CINDERELLA has ever seen—the private box of a theatre. In this box sit, wriggle, and sprawl the four children in their nightgowns, leaning over the golden parapet as if to the manner born and carelessly kicking nuggets out of it. They are shouting, pointing, and otherwise behaving badly, eating oranges out of paper bags, then blowing out the bags and bursting them. The superb scene is lit by four street lamps with red glass. Dancing is going on: the ladies all in white, the gentlemen in black with swords. If you were unused to royal balls you would think every one of these people was worth describing separately; but, compared to what is coming, it may be said that CINDERELLA has merely pushed them on with her lovely foot. They are her idea of courtiers, and have anxious expressions as if they knew she was watching them. They have character in the lump, if we may put it that way, but none individually. Thus one cannot smile or sigh, for instance, without all the others smiling or sighing. At night they probably sleep in two large beds, one for ladies and one for gentlemen, and if one of the ladies, say, wants to turn round, she gives the signal, and they all turn simultaneously. As children they were not like this; they had genuine personal traits, but these have gradually been blotted out as they basked in royal favour; thus, if the KING wipes his glasses they all pretend that their glasses need wiping, and when the QUEEN lets her handkerchief fall they all stoop loyally to pick up their own.
Down the golden steps at the back comes the LORD MAYOR, easily recognisable by his enormous chain.)
LORD MAYOR. O yes, O yes, make way everyone for the Lord Mayor—namely myself.
(They all make way for him. Two black boys fling open lovely curtains.)
O yes, O yes, make way every one, and also myself, for Lord Times.
(This is a magnificent person created by CINDERELLA on learning from MR. BODIE that the press is all powerful and that the ‘Times’ is the press. He carries one hand behind his back, as if it might be too risky to show the whole of himself at once, and it is noticeable that as he walks his feet do not quite touch the ground. He is the only person who is not a little staggered by the amount of gold: you almost feel that he thinks there is not quite enough of it. He very nearly sits down on one of the royal rocking chairs: and the LORD MAYOR, looking red and unhappy, and as if he had now done for himself, has to whisper to him that the seats under the throne are reserved.)
O yes, O yes, make way for the Censor.
(CINDERELLA has had a good deal of trouble over this person, of whom she has heard a great deal in war-time, without meeting anyone who can tell her what he is like. She has done her best, and he is long and black and thin, dressed as tightly as a fish, and carries an executioner’s axe. All fall back from him in fear, except LORD TIMES, who takes a step forward, and then the CENSOR falls back.)
O yes, O yes, make way everybody for his Royal Highness the King, and his good lady the Queen.