coming on, so he did not feel the loss much) to pay for his placards. He was manager of the T. R., Long Acre! To his own surprise and everybody's besides, he found money enough in the treasury on Saturday night to pay his way. The Town lauded him extravagantly: he was the only man who had made the theatre remunerative! On the strength of this applause he was able to borrow money at a rate not much exceeding sixty per cent—of course taking part of the advance in cases of champagne. Certainly he was clever. He made even the wine available! He gave a grand supper to his employés. The thing was well noticed by the press, and advanced the theatre wonderfully. All that is ever wanted, it seems, in such matters, is reputation for success. Of course, a manager who gives champagne to his supernumeraries must be successful, and the theatre was crowded nightly. It was admitted that a low comedian, criticising the liquor, had declared a decided preference for "shandygaff;" but he was voted coarse, and put down. Altogether, the corps suffered much less than might have been expected. There was no coroner's inquest. Some actors' stomachs must be as strong as their lungs.
"The secret of my success as a manager," said Grimshaw once in a confidential moment, and when perhaps his habitual caution had been carried away by a tide of hot gin-and-water, then running very high indeed, " the secret of my success as a manager lies in the billing. People say it's novelty, but it isn't. I like novelty, of course, when I can get it, but I can't always; and the fact is, that with proper billing you may make an old thing look like a new one. You may make almost anything pass for a novelty. I'm very particular about my billing. I ride through the town once a week regularly to take stock of my playbills. I keep my eye on the shops that put them boldly out at the front, so that they must strike the passer-by. I defy him to avoid them. And I note those as smuggle 'em up in the back shop, or perhaps use them to wrap up parcels, or what not. I've known it done. And I look how the placards are wearing, and try to find new pitches for them; and I try to invent a new system of advertising. That's the thing with the public; keep it up, stick to them, bully them: they'll defy you at first, chaff you, swear at you perhaps; but in the end you'll find them all taking dress-circle tickets for themselves and every member of their families, and the house Crammed to suffocation every night, and a mere stock piece placing after all, perhaps. And if you can do this with an old thing, what can't you do with a new one?"
It has been said that he was not a very nice man. He did not take the T. R., Long Acre, because he had any regard for the drama, or because he respected anything or anybody. There was no purpose in his management beyond his own advantage.
"It don't matter to me, you know, a morsel, what's played," he said, as he drained his sixth tumbler, nearly swallowing a slab of lemon that had whilom been floating in the liquor, but was now quite stranded or knocking about in the glass in a dry, useless way. "I'll put up anything they'll come and see. Is it Billy Shakspeare you want?—you shall have him, hot and strong, and plenty of him—only pay your money at the door fust, please. Or will you have hopera? All right. I'll give you the best of singing birds, or bally, or 'orses, or the hacrobats, or the helephants—anythink you like, it don't matter to me, blesh you, only say the word. Glasses round again, gentlemen; or, what do you say, will you have a bottle of sham?" &c., &c.
Certainly, it was all the same to Mr. Grimshaw what he " put up," as he phrased it, and he would have played Shakspeare as soon as anything else, if he had thought he could have made it pay, and sooner, if he could have made a "novelty," or got a "sensation" out of it (the word wasn't in use then; but never mind, it fits just as well the circumstances of which I am narrating). Above all, if he could have engaged a trained gorilla, and been able to cast him for the part of Romeo! He had made a great bit with an accomplished troup of dogs and monkeys—a poodle who danced a naval hornpipe in appropriate costume, having by his cleverness held London enthralled for months. But a trained gorilla as Romeo! What houses! What a draw! if the thing was only tolerably billed!
He was always looking out for novelty of whatever kind. He was always attentive to what was passing on other stages, at home and abroad—he was not above borrowing the ideas of his neighbours when there was occasion. Business was beginning to flag a little. The public was certainly hard to please. The performing wild beasts were exceedingly clever—they had eaten a stage carpenter entirely, and enjoyed several mouthfuls of a call-boy—and yet the houses were not nearly so good as might have been expected. He heard on several sides that a new dancer—Mademoiselle Stephanie Boisfleury—was exciting attention—"creating a furore" was the exact expression—at Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, Milan, &c.
"I might do worse than engage her, you know," said Grimshaw; "they tell me, you know, she's a good-looking woman, and a very plucky dancer. There hasn't been a regular right-down good bally in London for some years. I wonder whether she'd come—cheap?"
In a few days a very elaborate system of billing commenced. An envelope, that appeared to contain a telegraphic message, was left by a boy in a uniform at the door of every private house in the Court Guide; and the nobility, gentry, and public were respectfully informed that the Lessee and Manager of the T. R., Long Acre, had secured at an enormous outlay, exclusively for that grand and national establishment, the services of the renowned Mademoiselle Stephanie Boisfleury, première danseuse of the San Carlo, at Naples, La Scala, Milan, and all the chief cities of Europe: whose extraordinary talents had been the theme of admiration of the entire continental press for a very considerable time past. Her first appearance, it was stated, would take place almost immediately, in the new, grand, romantic ballet, in six tableaux, "L'Aérolithe; ou, La Fille du Firmament:" music by Signor Strepito—with entirely new scenery, dresses, and appointments, upon