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“Go on, my dear Danford; what you say is very true and very interesting. I am beginning to see what you mean. By the way, I think I see the Duke of Southdown on that chair—shall we walk up to him? You might tell him of your plan.”

“Do nothing of the kind!” hurriedly said the mimic, laying a firm hand on Lord Somerville’s arm. “The man you take for His Grace is a driver of the London General Omnibus Company. Now, my lord, you see what mistakes you are likely to make.”

“By God, I could have sworn this was the Duke! But, Danford, do you never commit such solecisms?”

“No, very rarely.” Danford shook his head knowingly, and over his thin lips flitted that indefinable smile for which he was so renowned on the boards. “But there you are, you have not made a special study of human physiognomy, and have not through hard plodding acquired that sense of observation, that keenness of perception, that we have, for you have had no need to retain the facial grimaces and queer movements of individuals. To-day the Music Halls are closed and we are broke, but in this wreckage, we artists have saved our precious faculty of memorising. The profession has therefore decided to make a new move; this morning I saw the manager of the Tivoli, who asked me to be the intermediary between the profession and the aristocracy—of which, my lord, you are one of the strongest columns. This state of things looks as if it were going to last, and as we cannot prevent it we must boom it.”