University of Virginia Library

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45

AN ACTOR'S TRICK

Stock actors in theatres when allowed a benefit make the most of it.
The actor whose regular salary may be from $10 to $25 per week has, on
this occasion, one half of the entire receipts of the house. He is supposed,
through the influence of his friends, to increase those receipts to double what
they usually are. To do this they must, unless they have a number, resort
to expedients not usually recognized as legitimate. An actor in the West
being given a benefit, issued a couple of thousand tickets entitling the
bearer to “free admission to the boxes on his benefit night.” These tickets
were assiduously dropped at every cross road, tavern and grocery for some
few miles in the vicinity on the night previous to the benefit. The bait
took; and fellows and their gals might have been seen advancing on the
good old town “'ere evening shadows fell.” The doors of the theatre were
regularly besieged by the pleasure seeking rustics. When the doors were
open, and a stout policeman or two had been prudently picketed at the
point of the entrance, a rush was made in order to get the best seats in the
house, as is always the case with your constitutional dead head.

To portray the mingled phases of astonisment, anger, and honest indignation
of the liberal patrons of the rustic drama when they were severally
informed by the urbane and gentlemanly door keeper that all those red
tickets were Frauds (and, indeed, as the reader knows, his information was
strictly true) is beyond the power of my feeble quill. As most of the young
fellows were accompanied by their sisters, and sweethearts (for the supply
of gratuitous paste-board had been diffused on a most liberal scale), it would
seem shabby to back out without seeing the show. So, with many a rueful
expression while fumbling for evasive quarters, and many whispered solicitations
for temporary accommodations, they filed in, pair after pair, and filled
the little theatre to its utmost capacity.

To cap the climax of the theatrical audacity, the beneficiary himself, between
the pieces, stepped in front of the curtain with a pack of the rejected
tickets in his hand, and in a most eloquent speech, denounced the contemptible
scoundrel or scoundrels who had attemped to injure him by such
outrageous imposition on the public. In the whole course of his professional
experience, whether in England, Australia, California or America, he
had never been so grossly insulted, “and,” continued he, warming to his
work, “if the cowardly blackguard or blackguards are in front of this house
to night, I dare them to meet me at the door of the theatre, and I will give
them each and all any satisfaction for the language I have used. Aye,” he
concluded, shaking his fist defiantly at a harmless medalion of Shakespeare
that decorated the front of the second tier, “and at any time and in any
way they may select.”

This plucky demonstration won all hearts and prolonged applause greeted
the injured stranger as he proudly, defiantly and slowly bowed himself
off. That young man has been a financial success, and still lives “a prosperous
gentleman.”

First Reveler (on being turned out of the Caledonian Club): “Come
and take a glass at my rooms.” Second Reveler: “Na, na, ah've had
mair than enouch!” First Reveler: “Hoots! Tak' anither mun! D'ye
no see ye're lettin' yer judgment get the better of ye?”

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46

Her Last Words.—When old Mrs. Maxwell of Bethlehem died, her
family and friends gathered at her bedside in terrible anguish, weeping
and moaning.

Her niece stood by her and held her hand, and, as the lamp flickered
before it was finally extinguished, she said to her:

“Is there anything that we can do to make your dying moments
happier? Have you any unfulfilled wish, any cherished design, which we
can carry out? Shall we do anything for you when you are gone?”

Mrs. Maxwell turned her face toward her niece, and, with a faltering
voice, said:

“Mariar, don't give none of them preserved plums to John Henry.
they always disagreed with his stomach.”

Then her freed spirit took its eternal flight.

Bayard Taylor relates a droll instance of the readiness and sharpness
of Mr. Greeley at repartee: There used to be a paper in this city called
the Evening Mirror, edited by Hiram Fuller, now of London. He
imagined his little sheet to be the most important journal in the city, and
was in the habit of asking his acquaintances, “Have you read the Mirror to
day?” At an editorial dinner, he addressed this question to Mr. Greeley in
my presence. Mr. G., with an indescribable drawl, almost a whine, replied
“Why, no; I never buy the Mirror. I'm afraid of exhausting the edition!”

The latest patent has been taken out by a railway restaurateur. It is
for a reversible gutta-percha beefsteak, which can be fried and served up
four times a day for a year, before it requires renewal.

A Wisconsin jury found that, “deceased came to his death from calling
Bill Jackson a liar.”

“Wife, do you know that I have got the pneumonia?” “New monia, indeed!
Such extravagance! You're the spendthriftiest man I ever did see!
To go and lay out money for such thrash, when I need a new bonnet so
much.”

The last English comic song has a really comic jingle for its refrain
recalling the punning chorus of “I saw Esau kissing Kate.” Thus it runs:

Precedence.—That was not a bad reply given recently at a barn-raising
in Pennsylvania to a young man who had been relating his more than
wonderful exploits in various quarters of the globe. At the close of one of
the narratives, he was not a little set back by the remark of an old cod:
“Young man, aint you ashamed to talk so when there are older liars on the
ground.