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FORE:"The house had a floor and galleries like one of our theatres, but there were only two galleries, and one of them was on a level with the parquet. The parquet, or floor, was divided into boxes, and they were literally boxes, and no mistake. They were square, and the partitions between them were little more than a foot high, with a flat board on the top for a rail. This was about five inches wide, and I soon saw what it was used for, as the people walked on it in going to and from their boxes. The boxes had no chairs in them, but they were carpeted with clean matting; and anybody could get cushions from the ushers by asking for them. Each box was intended to hold four persons; but it required that the four should not be very large, and that each should stick to his own corner. One box in front of us had six women in it, and there were two or three boxes crowded with children. They had tea and sweetmeats in many of[Pg 233] the boxes, and I noticed that men and boys were going around selling these things. I asked if we had come to the right place, as it occurred to me that it was only at the Bowery and that kind of theatre in New York that they sold peanuts and such things; but the Doctor said it was all right, and they did this in all the best theatres in Japan.But the heedless throng of fashionables recked nothing of this. The Countess Lalage was their latest craze. Who she was or where she came from nobody knew nor cared. She was young and wonderfully beautiful in a dashing Southern way, her equipages were an amazement to the park; she must have been immensely rich, or she would never have entertained as she did. There must have been a Count Lalage at one time, for generally a pretty little girl rode with the Countess, and this child was her daughter. The Countess spoke casually of large South American concessions and silver mines, so that Oxford Street and Regent Street bowed down and worshipped her.
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