4 a.m.
The audience could not control the expression of its delight . A young lady under a sunshade appeared ; the mere fact of her existence threw the audience into a new ecstasy . An old man with a red nose appeared : similar demonstrations from the audience . When these two had talked to each other and sung to each other , the applause was tripled , and when the scene changed from Piccadilly Circus at 4 a.m. to the interior of a Spanish palace inhabited by illustrious French actors and actresses who proceeded to play an act of a tragedy by Corneille , the applause was quintupled . At the end of the tragedy the applause was decupled . Then the Spanish palace dissolved into an Abyssinian harem , and Eliza Fiddle in Abyssinian costume was discovered lying upon two thousand cushions of two thousand colours , and the audience rose at Eliza and Eliza rose at the audience , and the resulting frenzy was the sublimest frenzy that ever shook a theatre . The piece was stopped dead for three minutes while the audience and Eliza protested a mutual and unique passion .