Page:The London Magazine, volume 8 (July–December 1823).djvu/536

as this can be at all injured by such light and capricious opinions.”

Mr. Tempest was confounded by this utter discomfiture of his inaugural effort, and sank dejected into silence. But his victorious foe looked abroad in all directions with a smiling and triumphant expression on his face—as if asking whether any body had witnessed the ability with which he had taken down the conceit of the young rattle-brain.

However Mr. Tempest was not so utterly dejected but he consoled himself with thinking that every dog has his day: his turn would come: and he might yet perhaps succeed in laying the old dragon asleep.

With a view to do this as soon as possible, at the end of the first act he begged a friend who stood next to him to take his place by the side of Ida for a few minutes, and then hastened out. Under one of the lamps on the outside of the theatre, he took out from his pocket the envelope of a letter he had lately received, and with a pencil wrote upon it a formal declaration of love. His project was—to ask Ida a second time for the play-bill, and on returning it to crush up the little note and put both together into her hand.—But lord! how the wisest schemes are baffled! On returning to the pit, he found the whole condition of things changed. His faithless representative met him with an apology at the very door. The fact was—that, seeing a pretty young lady standing close by him, the devil of gallantry had led him to cede to her use in perpetuity what had been committed to his own care in trust only for a few moments. Nor was this all: for the lady being much admired and followed, and (like comets or highland chieftains) having her “tail” on for this night, there was no possibility of reaching the neighbourhood of Ida for the pressure of the lady’s tail of followers.

In his whole life had Mr. Tempest never witnessed a more stupid performance, worse actors, or more disgusting people about him than during the time that he was separated from Ida. With the eye of an experienced tactician, he had calculated to a hair the course he must steer on the termination of the play to rejoin the object of his anxious regard. But alas! when the curtain dropped, he found his road quite blocked up. No remedy was left but to press right on and without respect of persons. But he gained nothing by the indefatigable labour of his elbows except a great number of scowling looks. His attention was just called to this, when Ida who had now reached the door looked back for a moment and then disappeared in company with her father. Two minutes after he had himself reached the door; but, looking round, he exclaimed pretty loudly—“Ah, good lord! it’s of no use;” and then through the moonlight and the crowd of people he shot like an arrow—leaving them all to wonder what madness had seized the young advocate who was usually so rational and composed. However he overtook the object of his pursuit in the street in which he lived. For, upon his turning rapidly round the corner, Mr. Goodchild alarmed at his noise and his speed, turned round upon him suddenly, and said, “Is this a man, or a horse?”

“Mr. Goodchild!” began the breathless barrister, “I am very much indebted to you.”

“Hem!” said the other in a way which seemed to express—“What now, my good Sir?”

“You have this evening directed my attention to the eminent qualifications of our manager. Most assuredly you were in the right: he played the part divinely.”

Here Mr. Tempest stopped to congratulate himself upon the triumphant expression which the moonlight revealed upon the face of his antagonist. On this triumph, if his plans succeeded, he meant to build a triumph of his own.

“Aye, aye: what then you’ve come to reason at last, my good Sir?”

“Your judgment and penetration,