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Jack Larceny the Pickpocket , having a word with Mr. Hicks, when I heard the first caterwaulings on the stairs leading to the dressing rooms.
    A few moments later, Mrs. Wilton and her entourage passed by the open doorway, en route to the ladies’ dressing room. Mrs. Wilton was borne aloft by our strapping young juvenile lead Master West and also by Elias Bancroft, one of our comedians, who is always helpful where the welfare of the ladies in the company is involved. The gentlemen had clasped their hands under Mrs. Wilton’s legs and behind her back and were transporting her laboriously down the corridor. The Parisian Phenomenon was fanning the air around her mother’s face without much effect. Looking suitably distraught, Suzy Simpson, still costumed like Mrs. Wilton as a coquette, encouraged the gentlemen to bear Mrs. Wilton gently into the dressing room and to put her down on the divan. Mrs. Wilton was sobbing loudly through the ordeal.
    Leaving Mr. Hicks to his own devices (and to his flask of gin), I followed the histrionic bunch into the ladies’ dressing room. I heard Mrs. Wilton curse the stage carpenter vehemently as well as a few of the stagehands. Tears had given way to bitterness.
    I entered the ladies’ dressing room with trepidation, as I nearly always do.
    “I am very glad you are here, Mr. Phillips,” Mrs. Wilton said in a choking voice. Her face was crimson and her eyes narrow. “You may go upstairs at this instant and sack Mr. Sharpe.” Mrs. Wilton was now reclined on her red velvet divan with her left leg on a cushion that Mrs. Simpson had gotten for her. She looked at her leg and began to sob again.
    “Are you injured, my dear Mrs. Wilton?”
    The theatrical dame shot me the same glance that she might have shot an imbecile at Bedlam. “Cannot you see?” she hissed. “My leg is broken. I will be fortunate to avoid amputation.”
    I glanced at Mrs. Wilton’s leg. Her skirt had been lifted modestly to the knee, and the kind Mrs. Simpson was gently rubbing her calf. I am no doctor, but the leg did not look to me askew in any way. It was perhaps swollen at the knee but not broken. “How did this happen?” I asked, trying to keep everybody as calm as possible in a room full of thespians.
    “Neither Mr. Sharpe nor any of his henchmen were there to catch me when I came through the vampire trap,” Mrs. Wilton said. “I struck my knee against a chair that had been purposely placed in the wings.”
    Not daring to come within an arm’s length of Mrs. Wilton, Mr. Bancroft stood absent-mindedly with his hand on the small of Mrs. Simpson’s back. Mrs. Simpson was too overwrought to protest. “But surely with a little rest, madam –” Mr. Bancroft said.
    “I do not require your advice, sir,” Mrs. Wilton shot back. “What I do require is medical attention.”
    “I shall find a doctor for you post haste,” the suitably chastened Mr. Bancroft replied. Upon his departure seemed to depend the fate of all mankind. I believe he was happy to have an excuse for exiting the room.
    Mrs. Wilton and the rest of them gazed at me expectantly. “Well,” I said finally, “I’ll have a word with Mr. Sharpe about it.”
    “Yes, do,” Mrs. Wilton replied archly. “Can you elevate my leg a little more, Mrs. Simpson? Bring me a cold compress, Eliza,” she said to the Parisian Phenomenon. “We must see if we can save this leg.” Both women were quick to respond to Mrs. Wilton’s demands, and I decided that the best course for me was to be quick, as well – quick to follow Mr. Bancroft out of the room.

* Chapter Three *
    Monday, 7 October 1850
    The new apprentice arrived today. I begin to fear for Harlequin and Columbine and for all the rest of us who would endeavor to create a pantomime upon this stage.
    He is not a very prepossessing young man. Less than five-and-a-half feet tall and narrow as the railings on my front step, he has a criminally low forehead and a lean and hungry look. Like Shakespeare, I