with extraordinary haste signed the document, and, in “the hurry of the moment,” left the inscription thus—­H.F.  FITZFLAM!  The morrow’s post brought an answer; the terms were acceded to, the night appointed for his opening; and Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk found, upon inspecting the proof of the playbill, the name in full of “Mr. Hannibal Fitzflummery Fitzflam,” “the great tragedian of the day!”

Pass we over the intervening space, and at once come to the momentous morning of rehearsal.  The expected Roscius arrived like punctuality’s self, at the appointed minute, was duly received by the company, who had previously been canvassing his merits, and assuring each other that all stars were muffs, but Fitzflam one of the most impudent impostors that ever moved.  “I, sir,” said the leader of the discontented fifteen-shillings-a-week-when-they-could-get-it squad, “I have been in the profession more years than this fellow has months, and he is getting hundreds where I am neglected:  never mind! only give me a chance, and I’ll show him up.  But I suppose the management—­(pretty management, to engage such a chap when I’m here)—­I suppose they will truckle to him, and send me on, as usual, for some wretched old bloke there’s no getting a hand in.  John Kemble himself (and I’m told I’m in his style), I say, John Kemble, my prototype, the now immortal John, never got applause in ’Blokes!’—­But never mind.”  As a genealogist would say, “Fitz the son of Funk” never more truly represented his ancestral cognomen than on this trying occasion.  He was no longer with amateurs, but regulars,—­fellows that could “talk and get on somehow;” that were never known to stick in Richard, when they remembered a speech from George Barnwell; men with “swallows” like Thames tunnels:  in fact, accomplished “gaggers” and unrivalled “wing watchers.”  However, as Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk spoke to none of them, crossed where he liked, cut out most of their best speeches, and turned all their backs to the audience, he passed muster exceedingly well, and acted the genuine star with considerable effect.  So it was at night.  Some folks objected to his knees, to be sure; but then they were silenced—­“What!  Fitzflam’s knees bad!  Nonsense!  Fitzflam is the thing in London; and do you think Fitzflam ought to be decried in the provinces? hasn’t he been lithographed by Lane?  Pooh! impudence! spite!” The great name made Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk “the great man,” and all went swimmingly.  On the last night of his engagement, the night devoted to his benefit, the house was crammed, and Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, reflecting that all was “cock sure,” as he should pocket the proceeds and return to London undiscovered, was elevated to Mahomet’s seventh heaven of happiness, awaiting with impatience the prompter’s whistle and the raising of the curtain:  where for a time we will leave him, and attend upon the real “Simon Pure”—­the genuine and “old original Hannibal Fitzflummery Fitzflam.”