It's a fine part, too-excellent business, I'm told. He
has to kill six people in the course of the piece, and to fight
over a bridge in red fire, which is as safe a card, you know, as
can be. Don't mention it; but I hear that the last scene, when he
is first poisoned, and then stabbed, by Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora,
will be the greatest thing that has been done these many years.'
With this piece of news, and laying his finger on his lips as a
caution for you not to excite the town with it, the theatrical
young gentleman hurries away.
The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the
different theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for
them all. Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane,
the Victoria the vic, and the Olympic the pic. Actresses, too, are
always designated by their surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett,
Faucit, Honey; that talented and lady-like girl Sheriff, that
clever little creature Horton, and so on. In the same manner he
prefixes Christian names when he mentions actors, as Charley Young,
Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul Bedford. When he is at a loss
for a Christian name, the word 'old' applied indiscriminately
answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews at Vestris's, old
Harley, and old Braham. He has a great knowledge of the private
proceedings of actresses, especially of their getting married, and
can tell you in a breath half-a-dozen who have changed their names
without avowing it.
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