said he, “I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake any character that ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to the singing hero of a farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language. Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play, an act, a scene; what should prevent us?

Not these countenances, I am sure,” looking towards the Miss Bertrams; “and for a theatre, what signifies a theatre? We shall be only amusing ourselves. Any room in this house might suffice.”

“We must have a curtain,” said Tom Bertram; “a few yards of green baize for a curtain, and perhaps that may be enough.”