Read "The Box With Broken Seals" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
About three-thirty on the following afternoon, in the grounds devoted to the much advertised Red Cross Sale, that eminent comedian, Mr. Joseph Bobby, mounted to the temporary rostrum which had been erected for him at the rear of one of the largest tents, amidst a little storm of half facetious applause. He repaid the general expectation by gazing steadfastly at a few friends amongst the audience in his usual inimitable fashion, and by indulging in a few minutes of gagging chaff before he proceeded to business. A little way off, a military band was playing popular selections. The broad avenues between the marquees were crowded with streams of pretty women in fancy dresses, and mankind with a little money in his pocket was having a particularly uneasy time. There was nothing to distinguish this from any other of the Red Cross fetes of the season, except, perhaps, its added magnificence.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the comedian began, "I am here to sell by auction the boxes at the Alhambra Theatre for to-night, when, as you know, there will be the greatest performance ever given by the largest number of star artistes -- myself included. Owing to a slight difference of opinion with the management, who, as you are probably aware, ladies and gentlemen, are the thickest-headed set of blighters in existence -- " Loud cries of "No! " from the managing director in the front row.