Cibber, who seems to have keenly gauged the man, has left us an account of how Rich[A] treated his actors.

"He would laugh with them over a bottle and bite them in their bargains.

He kept them poor, that they might not be able to rebel; and sometimes merry, that they might not think of it." How graphic is this picture, with its vision of sly, crafty Christopher, as he denies the players their well-earned wages and then hurries them off to a neighbouring tavern, there to get them hilarious on cheap wine and grudgingly to pay the reckoning.

"All their articles of agreement," continues Colley, "had a clause in them that he was sure to creep out at, viz., their respective sallaries were to be paid in such manner and proportion as others of the same company were paid; which in effect made them all, when he pleas'd, but limited sharers of loss, and himself sole proprietor of profits; and this loss or profit they only had such verbal accounts of as he thought proper to give them.

'Tis true, he would sometimes advance them money (but not more than he knew at most could be due to them) upon their bonds; upon which, whenever they were mutinous, he would threaten to sue them.