SNEER.
Faith, I can’t guess—
PUFF.
A clock.—Hark!—[Clock strikes.] I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience: it also marks the time, which is four o’clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.
DANGLE.
But pray, are the sentinels to be asleep?
PUFF.
Fast as watchmen.
SNEER.
Isn’t that odd though at such an alarming crisis?
PUFF.
To be sure it is,—but smaller things must give way to a striking scene at the opening; that’s a rule. And the case is, that two great men are coming to this very spot to begin the piece; now it is not to be supposed they would open their lips, if these fellows were watching them; so, egad, I must either have sent them off their posts, or set them asleep.
SNEER.
Oh, that accounts for it. But tell us, who are these coming?
PUFF.
These are they—Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Christopher Hatton. You’ll know Sir Christopher by his turning out his toes—famous, you know, for his dancing. I like to preserve all the little traits of character.—Now attend. Enter SIR WALTER RALEIGH and SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON.
SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON.
True, gallant Raleigh!
DANGLE.
What, they had been talking before?