"It is a mixture of my own, Madame," he replied. "I call it the last breath of love."
The actress remarked that she would call him a fool, and he bowed and withdrew. A few minutes later, when she appeared behind the foot-lights, instead of the roar of applause which she expected, she was hailed with a tempestuous scream of laughter. Her discarded lover had had his revenge. He had dyed her golden locks with a chemical which turned pea green as soon as it was dry. She dresses what hair she has left herself now, while he is boss of a five-cent shaving emporium, never speaks to any lady but his landlady, and has a Chinaman to do his washing.
If there is a ballet or a burlesque crowd or comic opera chorus in the theatre the scenes in their rooms will be of a more diversified nature. The girls in addition to making their faces pretty, must have their limbs so shapely that no fault can be found even by the most cavilling of the gentlemen who crowd up behind the orchestra while the house holds a host of female attractions. The rage for limb exhibitions rendered it necessary that some means should be devised to hide the calves or poorly turned ankles of the creatures whose limbs are displayed. Happily the symmetricals, as padded tights are called, were hit upon and now you cannot find an unsightly piece of underpinning in any combination, and even the poor ballet girl who does page's parts or helps to make up a crowd for $6 a week, will, if she has sense and taste, go early to the dealer in theatrical goods and have symmetricals made to suit the exigencies of her case. These artistic accessories of feminine fictitiousness are leggings or tights woven in such a manner the thickness of a deficient thigh, the pipe-stem character of a calf, are filled out with silk and cotton into shapefulness and beauty that Venus de Medici herself would not be ashamed to make a display of. I heard a story about an operatic artist who for a long time refused to play parts demanding the exhibition even of a fraction of a limb, and all because her lower members were too attenuated to attract anything else but ridicule. Lately she has found her way to the pad-maker's and now can present as pretty an ankle and as round a calf to the audience as sister artists who have more flesh and blood in their composition. Men as well as women patronize the pad-maker and any actor of the mashing persuasion who may have had to keep his bandy legs in wide pantaloons heretofore can now burst forth upon the sight of his adored in all the gorgeous loveliness and perfection of an attractive anatomy.
MARIE ROZE.
CHAPTER VIII.
WITHIN THE WINGS.
IN THE GREEN ROOM.
The green-room, except where stock companies prevail—and there are not more than three or four in the United States now—has passed out of the shadow of the rigorous rules that sometime ago were posted here, and that had to be observed. By this I do not mean that rules have been entirely done away with behind the scenes; but travelling companies are governed by their own rules, carry their own stage manager, prompter, etc., and the only persons that local green-room rules could apply to now-a-days would be the four or five poorly paid young girls who, in their desire to go on the stage and become stars, start and generally stay at the bottom of the ladder, where they are paid pitiful salaries and continue to "mash" wandering minstrels, or the equally poorly paid and badly treated members of some male chorus. These girls usually spend the lengthy leisure a performance gives them sitting demurely on chairs in the corner of the green-room until the call-boy sends them word that they are needed to fill up some silent gap in the entertainment. Beyond these there are few to be found in the green-room during a performance. Occasionally an actor will drop in to pace the floor as he mumbles his lines over, or an actress, who is tired from standing in the wings, or on the stage, will hurry in and drop to rest on the sofa. The side scenes, or "wings," as they are termed, are the places in which to find almost everybody who has any business around the stage of a theatre. Under the stage, in a "music-room," the musicians may be found when they are not harassing the audience with some unanimously discordant air.
A GREEN-ROOM TABLEAU.
GETTING THEIR "LINES."
Gathered together in the entrances and within easy call of the prompter, whose business it has recently become to mind everybody else's business, are the performers, male and female mingling together, waiting for their cue to go on. The absence of chairs makes it necessary for all to remain on their feet, and only when a friendly "property" that may be used for sedentary purposes is within reach will a weary actor or actress take possession of it. Enough has been said already about the general aspect of affairs behind the scenes and the groupings in the green-room. Now, let us turn our attention to some of the individuals and incidents of this remarkable little world. The stage prompter is, probably, as important a gentleman as we could first run against. The prompter stands at his desk at one side of the stage, with a book of the play before him during the entire performance. It is his business to furnish the players with their lines when memory fails them. He must be quick to give the performer the exact word that has thrown him off the track, and just as soon as an actor or actress looks appealingly towards him he knows what it means—that the performer is "stuck"—and he must run to their aid at once. His position is almost as responsible as that of the prompter in the Japanese theatre, who goes from one actor to the other, during the whole performance, and, with a lantern placed up against the play-book, reads off the lines which the actor is expected to repeat. He must be at the theatre during the morning rehearsals; and he also writes out parts; changes of scenes; makes lists of the properties or articles needed; and altogether, his position is nothing like a sinecure. A rule of the theatre, that in many places, has glided quietly out of existence, is to the effect that nobody must lounge in the prompter's corner. But they do. Many a fairy queen, with shining raiment and powerful wand, loiters around to catch a glimpse of the few lines she has to speak, while darling little princes in the nicest of tights, or pirates, or bandits, with symmetrical limbs fully displayed, and the softest of hearts beating under their corsets, get alongside of him, and because they have had little parts to memorize, and have let them slip lightly and swiftly beyond their recollection, tease the prompter to help them regain the lost words.
MILTON NOBLES.
A veteran prompter, who has evidently seen a great deal of the world beyond the foot-lights, in giving his reminiscences, said—"Some actors boast that they never stick. No matter if they have totally forgotten their lines, they 'say something,' as they phrase it, and I have never seen the difference noted by the audience yet. Once, while I was making the rounds of the Pacific coast, twenty years or so ago, I went to see a performance of 'Macbeth,' by the company of a friend of mine in San Francisco. It was a tough company, a band of regulation old-time barn stormers, and the fellow who played Macbeth was so far gone in the dreamy vacancy of whiskey that he 'gagged' his part more than once in the first scene. Finally, in the middle of his second, he was also dead lost. He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he threw his arms around Lady Macbeth's waist, and drawing her to him, coolly said: 'Let us retire, dearest chuck, and con this matter over in a more sequestered spot, far from the busy haunts of men. Here the walls and doors are spies, and our every word is echoed far and near. Come, then, let's away! False heart must hide, you know, what false heart dare not show.' They made their exit in a roar of applause, and I thought, 'There's a man who has no use for a prompter, sure enough.'
IMPROVING SPARE MOMENTS.
"All actors are not like him, however. Raw actors are the