Gaining the street Mr Headstone lost no time in hailing a cabriolet and pressing Messrs Pyke and Pluck into its interior. The pedagogue settled himself beside them and gave the driver instructions to take them to the Strand, silently congratulating himself all the while on the adroit stratagem he had employed in preventing his visitors from entering his rooms and discovering his recently acquired riches. He was confident that the distractions of the theatre would engage the two gentlemen's attentions - which he knew to be of a most impermanent nature - and that the additional application of spirits would succeed in befuddling what little wits they possessed.
The playbill outside the Adelphi Theatre announced in very large letters that the entertainment to be performed upon the boards was 'Positively the last appearance of Mr Vincent Crummles of Provincial Celebrity!!', and that - in addition to this legendary thespian - there would also be appearances by Miss Ninetta Crummles (otherwise known as the Infant Phenomenon), the African Swallower, Mr Snittle Timberry, and Henrietta Petowker. The reader will no doubt have already anticipated the interest engendered by such a concentration of theatrical genius on a single stage, and - like the audience who sat waiting for the rise of the curtain - will be in a fervour of excitement to behold the spectacle - an emotion which must be kept in check until our next communication.
Mr Charles Dickens
