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262 moreover, the interests of the Archbishop and the Harlequin must be interwoven in an interesting and sufficiently probable manner. However, the fact that there is a clerical side to the Harlequin's character, renders this exceedingly easy. The Harlequin loves the Archbishop's daughter; but the Archbishop (a very haughty ecclesiastic of the Thomas à Becket type) objects to Harlequins on principle, and determines that his daughter shall marry into the Church. Here is at once the necessary association of the Archbishop and the Harlequin, and here, moreover, is an excellent reason for the Harlequin's taking holy orders. The Archbishop admits him, in ignorance of his other profession, and places no obstacle in the way of his courting his daughter. But a good deal of the interest of the lover's part should obviously depend on the contrast of his duties as a clergyman and his duties as a Harlequin (for an obdurate manager declines to release him from his engagement in the latter capacity), and Facile sets to work to see how the two professions can be contrasted to the best advantage. This requires some consideration, but he sees his way to it at last. The Archbishop (a bitter enemy to the stage, which he denounces whenever an opportunity of doing so presents itself) happens to be the freeholder of the very theatre in which the Harlequin is engaged; and happening to call at the theatre one evening, with the double object of collecting his quarter's rent and endeavouring to wean the manager from a godless profession, he meets his daughter's lover in Harlequin costume. Here is an opportunity for a scene of haughty recrimination—the