When he grows a little older and learns to starve a bit he will soon lower his crest." "I like him none the less for holding up his head.

I will come to the play." "But you must be there at seven o'clock sharp.

He always begins punctually; whether there is any audience or not." "The lad has character, I see; pray give him this"-- and he handed the innkeeper half a sovereign.

He quickly returned with the reply that the manager could not for the moment give change.
"But I meant him to keep the whole of it as an admittance fee." "Ah, yes." A short time afterwards, the innkeeper reappeared with a whole bundle of admission tickets for Szilard, saying that the manager thanked him for his sympathy, but as he was not in the habit of accepting presents from anyone, he assumed that his honour meant to engage the whole house for himself that evening and he, the manager, would therefore give a representation for his honour's sole benefit.
Szilard laughed heartily at this comical conscientiousness, and after dressing, he went about his official business with as much dispatch as possible in order to arrive at the play at seven o'clock sharp, for he was now the whole public and the public ought always to be punctual.
When he got to the room set apart for the performance he found that, despite the provisional _abonnement suspendu_ arrangement, the place was not quite empty, for the gratis public, the lenders of the theatrical requisites and their families, the letters of lodgings to the actors and other peaceful creditors, occupied a couple of benches, so that Szilard had the opportunity of effacing himself and thus avoiding confusing the _troupe_ by his solitary and imposing personality.
No sooner had the innkeeper's cuckoo clock struck seven than the ring of the prompter's bell resounded behind the curtain (it sounded suspiciously like a glass struck smartly with the back of a knife) and by means of a highly ingenious piece of machinery the drop-curtain, stuck over with the tricolored cardboard representing the national flag, was hoisted up to the ceiling-beam, and the open stage was revealed.
The background was formed by a collapsible screen which was painted to represent a room; in the foreground on one side was a paper window painted black and white, and on the other side the cellar door, metamorphosed into the portal of a Gothic palace.

Through this entry the whole of the _dramatis personae_ came and went, for it was the only one.
The piece acted was, naturally, not "Hernani or Castilian Honour," but Schiller's "Robbers." Szilard recognized it at the very first three words.