“Goodbye, and thank you.”

The door opened with a protracted groan and Peregrine entered The Dolphin.

The windows were unshuttered and though masked by dirt let enough light into the foyer for him to see it quite distinctly. It was surprisingly big. Two flights of stairs with the prettiest wrought-iron balustrades curved up into darkness. At the back and deep in shadow, passages led off on either side giving entrance no doubt to boxes and orchestral stalls. The Pit entrance must be from somewhere outside.

On Peregrine’s right stood a very rococo box-office introduced, he felt sure, by Mr. Ruby. A brace of consequential plaster putti hovered upside down with fat-faced insouciance above the grill and must have looked in their prime as if they.were counting the door sales. A fibre-plaster bust of Shakespeare on a tortuous pedestal lurked in the shadows. The filthy walls were elegantly panelled and he thought must have originally been painted pink and gilded.

There was nothing between Peregrine and the topmost ceiling. The circle landing, again with a wrought-iron balustrade, reached less than halfway across the well. He stared up into darkness and fancied he could distinguish a chandelier. The stench was frightful: rats, rot, general dirt and, he thought, an unspeakable aftermath of the hobos that the clerk had talked about But how lovely it must have been in its early Victorian elegance and even with Mr. Ruby’s preposterous additions. And how surprisingly undamaged it seemed to be.

He turned to the righthand flight of stairs and found two notices: dress circle and to the paris bar. The signwriter had added pointing hands with frills round their wrists. Upstairs first, or into the stalls? Up.

He passed by grimed and flaking panels, noticing the graceful airiness of plaster ornament that separated them. He trailed a finger on the iron balustrade but withdrew it quickly at the thick touch of occulted dust Here was the circle foyer. The double flight of stairs actually came out on either side of a balcony landing that projected beyond the main landing and formed the roof of a portico over the lower foyer. Flights of three shallow steps led up from three sides of this “half-landing” to the top level. The entire structure was supported by very elegant iron pillars.