And when in spite of his adjurations, Mrs. Courtaine—for the lady was none other—walked under a ladder leaning against the side of a rising building. He sank upon a row of beer kegs and fastened a cumulative grip on Mr. Ince's arm, exclaiming—"Did you witness it wasn't my fault? I warned her in time, didn't I?"
* * * * *
"Do you remember my wife walking under a ladder yesterday?" observed Mr. Courtaine to Mr. Ince on the morrow.
"Yes, what of it?"
"Well, when we got home we found the cat had killed the canary bird—killed and ate it all but the tail feathers," said Mr. Courtaine triumphantly. "Now what do you think of that? Here come around to Theiss's or we'll have those fellows around us with their infernal low-minded superstitions again."
PORTIA AND SHYLOCK.
Portia:—Nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Scene 1.
CHAPTER X.
NOT DOWN IN THE BILL.
Some very queer things happen behind the scenes, and even on the stage in full view of the audience—occurrences that often mar the pleasure of the play for the people in the auditorium, and raise the wrath of the performer. Anything out of the usual run of business that occurs behind the scenes throws the players off the track frequently. There is a great deal of work going on at all times, out of sight or knowledge of the audience, and a slight disturbance may be an interruption fraught with dire disaster. There are actors and actresses in the wings, often, completing the memorization of their parts—"winging" parts, as it is called—or it may be going over their lines again, if they are not confident that they have full possession of them; and to these people, of course, an interruption is a matter of the merest moment. Actors and actresses have always been credited with good memories, but even the best memory may sometimes be thrown off the track, and, indeed, sometimes is, by an untoward or startling incident.
LIZZIE M'CALL.
Speaking of memory, reminds me that an actor once memorized an entire newspaper, when they were smaller than now, in a single night. The actor was a man named Lyon, who was playing small parts through the country. An English actor committed the contents of the London Times, advertisements and all, within a week, besides studying a new part for every night. The feat was accomplished on a wager. An actor in London, sat through a play, and although he had never seen it before, could repeat every line and word of it when he got home. He sat down and wrote it out, and the copy thus written was used for the performance of the play in New York. Many readers will recollect the New York couple prosecuted by the Madison Square Theatre Company for selling copies of "Hazel Kirke" to companies that had no right to play the drama. The wife, it was explained, went to the theatre, sat the play out a few times, and dictated the lines to her husband from memory. She had been an actress. There are many other remarkable instances of swift and retentive memories in the profession, but one of the most astonishing of all these feats is what is known as "winging a part," an expression I have used before in this chapter. This consists in going on the stage without having studied the lines at all, the actor carrying the book in his pocket, and pulling it out every time he gets out of sight of the audience, studying the part in the "wings" until he receives his cue to go on again. This method of going through the part continues during the performance, the actor speaking the lines to the best of his ability, and following the text as closely as possible.
Returning to the subject of the chapter, there are several instances of actors and actresses, prominent and minor, receiving their death strokes on the stage while playing. Mistress Woffington, known as "lovely Peggy," while playing at Covent Garden, London, May 3, 1757, fell to the stage at the end of the fourth act of "As You Like it," in which she was playing Rosalind, and after muttering "O God! O God!" was carried home to die after a lingering confinement of three years to her bed. George Frederick Cooke received his death stroke in New York, while playing Sir Giles Overreach, and Edmund Kean died in England under similar circumstances. The elder Kean and his son Charles were playing together, the former having the role of Othello, the latter that of Iago. The date was March 25, 1833. The event, says a chronicler, created great excitement among play-goers; the house was crammed. Kean, who had worn himself out with dissipation, went through the part, "dying as he went," until he came to the "Farewell," and the strangely appropriate words, "Othello's occupation's gone." Then he gasped for breath and fell upon his son's shoulder, moaning, "I am dying—speak to them for me!" And so the curtain descended upon him—forever. His wife had separated from him. "Come home to me; forget and forgive!" he wrote her after he had been conveyed to Richmond. And she came. An hour before he died he sprang out of bed, exclaiming, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" and he expired with the dying words of Octavian, "Farewell, Flo—— Floranthe!" upon his lips. This was on May 15, 1833, and he was buried in Richmond churchyard. Instances of the same appalling kind might be multiplied, but it is not the purpose of the writer to cover the stage with gloom, or to cause death to masquerade any more than is absolutely necessary before the foot-lights. More interest will be felt, and the heart will be lighter and the appetite better, if we turn to the ludicrous incidents that have caused audiences ready to shed tears over a tragedy, to turn from the lachrymose attitude to one which might be represented as laughter holding both his sides.
"PIN UP MY SKIRTS."
Sol Smith tells a funny story about his earliest experiences on the stage; how he stole in through the back door before the performance, and hid in what he thought was a chest, but which turned out to be the coffin used in the play that evening, and when it was carried out on the stage young Smith was so terrified that he pushed up the lid and bounded out, to the surprise of both actors and audience. N. M. Ludlow, who was Smith's partner in the theatrical business, relates a somewhat similar incident about himself.
The awkward position of a "masher" who gets into the "wings" by some hook or crook is often extremely laughable. I saw a serio-comic vocalist—as the songstresses of the variety stage are named—astonish a well-dressed and admiring gentleman who was lounging around at his leisure—having in some mysterious manner passed the stage door-keeper—by handing him a pin and remarking, "Pin up my skirts." The man's eye-glass was knocked out of place by the impertinence of the demand, but he took the pin and obeyed the lady's command, and this, too, notwithstanding a second female in tights, was near by, who could have done the job a thousand times better. It was the sweet singer's little joke, though.
ANNIE PIXLEY AS "M'LISS."
Charlotte Cushman and her sister were playing in Trenton, New Jersey, one night. The bill announced was "Romeo and Juliet," with Miss Cushman in her afterwards famous impersonation of the male character and her sister as Juliet. The ball-room of the town which was used as a theatre, when occasion required, was sadly lacking in scenery and properties. The sisters went to work, however, and succeeded in getting together everything they needed for the performance, except the balcony in the garden scene. After looking around they found an old bed-quilt, patched, and abounding in numerous colors; it was arranged that a colored bell-boy from an adjacent hotel should, while stationed in the side-scenes, out of view, hold up one end of the quilt while the fair Juliet supported the other. The boy was on hand in the evening,