Despair's Last Journey by David Christie Murray

In a month's time from this Paul's soul sat chuckling all day long. He lived with the quaintest set he had ever conceived, and there was no page of 'Nickleby' which was fuller of comedy than a day of his own life. He met Crummies, and actually heard him wonder how those things got into the papers. He met the Infant Phenomenon. With his own hands he had helped to adjust the immortal real pump and tubs. He was still in the days when there was a farce in an evening's performance to play the people in, and a solid five-act melodrama for the public's solid fare, and a farce to play the people out.

Darco travelled with his own company, majestically Astrachan-furred and splendid, but rarely clean-shaven. Nine days in ten an aggressive stubble on cheek and chin seemed to sprout from an inward sense of his own glorious import.