Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/60



GREAT event happened.

The Tadcaster Inn had become more and more a maelstrom of joy and laughter. Never was there such resonant gaiety. The landlord and his boy were not able to draw all the ale, stout, and porter. In the evening in the lower room, with its windows all aglow, there was not a vacant table. They sang, they shouted; the huge fireplace, vaulted like an oven, with its iron bars piled with logs, shone out brightly. It was like a house of fire and noise.

In the yard—that is to say, in the theatre—the crowd was greater still. Crowds as great as Southwark could supply so thronged the performances of "Chaos Vanquished" that directly the curtain was raised (that is to say, the platform of the Green Box was lowered) every place was filled. The windows were alive with spectators, the balcony was crammed. Not a single stone was to be seen in the courtyard. It seemed to be paved with faces. Only the compartment for the nobility remained empty. There was thus a vacant space in the centre of the balcony; crowds everywhere except in that one spot. But one evening that also was occupied.

It was on a Saturday, a day on which the English make all haste to amuse themselves before the ennui of