164 STRAY -AW AYS 



During the first act, we thought that we saw our way 

 into the plot ; during the second, we constructed one 

 of singular ability ; at the beginning of the third, we 

 threw up the sponge, and subsided into chaos. 

 Another student party, very determined and unani- 

 mous about something or other, melted from the 

 stage, leaving the hero solitary, in a frock-coat and 

 tight black trousers. To him entered, seemingly 

 with a pain in his stomach, a bent old man. The stage 

 immediately darkened, and the old man -embarked 

 on a long speech in rhymed verse, with frequent 

 allusions to Jerusalem. The audience fell into appro- 

 priate gloom, and we settled that he was a Jew 

 money-lender trying to get something on account, on 

 the plea that he was bound by destiny to return to 

 Jerusalem. My cousin then went to sleep. The old 

 man continued for yet another five minutes, and left 

 unexpectedly and tragically, having dropped a pair 

 of shoes on the floor. The stage became inky black, 

 cataclysms occurred in the scenery, and the lights 

 were turned up on a drawing-room, and a supper- 

 party which included an 1830 grandmother. Sir Lucius 

 O'Trigger, the heroine, who had throughout the 

 piece maintained a modest silence, and the student 

 hero, on whose feet were the shoes left behind by the 

 money-lender. I was inspired to suggest the Goloshes 

 of Fortune, and a kindly neighbour informed us in 

 German that the old man was the Wandering Jew, 

 which seemed to her to explain all eccentricities. It 

 transpired that by virtue of the goloshes the student 

 was invisible, and that he was to be the means of 

 humbling the pretensions of Sir Lucius. The party 

 supped with the utmost realism, and fell to playing 

 a long drawing-room game, of the nature of " A Ship 

 came from China," but of far greater intricacy, the 

 grandparents playing with unaffected enjoyment and 



