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 freely used, especially by the gallants on the stage. Books were also hawked up and down, and a game of cards might beguile the tedium of waiting. The galleries were full of light women, who found them a profitable haunt, but whose presence did not altogether prevent that of ladies of position, probably in the private rooms, and possibly masked.

If the audience liked a play, the actors expected a Plaudite of hand-clapping; if otherwise, they took their chance of hissing and 'mewing', or of a pointed withdrawal of spectators from the stage. The device of a claque was not

ginger-bread at a play-house'.]*
 * [Footnote: Overbury, Characters (ed. Rimbault, 113, A Puny-Clarke), 'Hee eats