Qlotnell UttiucrBttg Htbtatg FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 285 145 olin.anx The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031285145 RIES OF THE STAGE ILLUSTRATED Compiled and Edited WILLIAM G. ROSE Dramatic Editor. Cleveland Plain D»alcr CLE.VELAND 1905 PROPS t DEALER PRESS, CLEVELAND PROPS STORIES OF THE STAGE From Many Sources Some are Ancient Some are New Some are Fiction Some are True COMPILED AND EDITED BY WILLIAM G. ROSE Dramatic Editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer CLEVELAND 1905 IN f sn*T-~ — ' — To that Prince of Romancers THE PRESS AGENT whose calm disregard for the truth and fertile and radiant imagination have dofie so much to revive and preserve the romances of the stage, this little volume is reverently DEDICATED Opyright, July, 190J ONE of the oldest and best of stage stories is that classic gem concerning an early-day perform- ance in Liverpool. The play was a lurid melo- drama in which the villain, who had sold his soul to the prince of evil, is supposed to descend in the last act to the infernal regions. Unfortunately, the trap was small and the actor stout. He went down to the waist line and there stuck fast. And, then, as he squirmed and wriggled, a clear voice rang out from the gallery heights : "Thank 'eaveni 'ell's full!" Dan Daly once essayed the legitimate. It was in his early days. All he had to do was to come to the center of the stage at a critical moment and shout : "The king is dead ; long live the king !" When the time came Mr. Daly promptly assumed the correct dramatic pose, but for a moment was so agitated that words failed him. Then he bellowed at the top of his voice : "Long live the king — ^he's dead !" A young Eastern actress was traveling in the West. She had left the train at a way station in Montana and asked the only man in sight how she could get to her destination far out in the country. "You'll have to wait for the morning stage," said the man. "You can't get any rig here." "But where am I to stop?" inquired the actress. "There's nothing here but the station, and I can't sleep on the floor." "Guess you'll have to bunk with the station agent," said the man. "Sir!" she exclaimed, "I am a lady!" "So's thfc station agent," said the man. On one occasion when "The Mikado" was being rehearsed, W. S. Gilbert called out from the middle of the stalls: "There is a gentleman in the left group not holding his fan correctly." The stage manager appeared and explained: "There is one gentleman," he said, "who is absent through illness." "Ah," came the reply from the author, in grave mattef-of-fact tones, "that is not the gentleman I am referring to." J. J. Rosenthal tells of an amusing experience which he had in Denver during a matinee performance. A stout, florid woman appeared at the entrance of the house leading two boys, aged seven and nine, and pre- sented one ticket. "You will have to buy tickets for those boys," in- sisted Rosenthal. "No, I won't," she protested; "they always go to sleep as soon as they get inside. Why should I pay for them if they don't see the show ?" Rosenthal thought of the days when his mother took him to matinees, and as the argument was one that he could not get around, he passed them in. After the first act an usher came to the manager and handed him a quarter. "What's this for?" he asked. "The fat lady told me to tell you one of the kids woke up." At a perform- ance of "The Lady of Lyons," pre- sented by E. H. Sothern, one of the actresses had the line: "No divorce can separate a mother from her son." Imagine the em- rassment of Mr. joseph jbpferson. Sothern, however, when the lady gave the sentence an awkward twist and forcibly declared : "No divorce can separate a Sothern from his mon !" Gus Pixley tells of a manager for whom he once played, who was of a most pessimistic nature. The company was having a run in New York, and the play being a hit, business was large and the houses were sold out at every performance. Gus did not appear until late in the evening, so he used to spend some of his leisure moments in the office with the manager before it was time for him to make his appearance. One night Pixley found the manager in a particu- larly depressed state of mind, and being himself of a buoyant disposition, sought to cheer him up. "Business keeps up fine, doesn't it ?" said the author. "No," replied the manager, "business is not so good as it was." "Why, you turned people away tonight as usual, didn't you ?" asked Pixley. "Yes, I know," replied the manager, "but we did not turn them away as early as we did last night." Drury underwood was in a small Montana town, and in a conversation with the local manager of the "op'ry" house, asked how many pieces there were in the orchestra. "We have three pieces," he replied. "A piano, stool and cover." Now and then actor, author and poet, E. H. Soth- ern, admits visitors to his dressing room. He did so in Cincinnati, where he entertained a somewhat nervous and excitable gentleman during his moments "off stage." In the midst of one of their arguments, during which the visitor expostulated volubly, there entered the room a digfnified and decorous colored man, who advanced to the center, saying in an earnest monotone : "Have you no fear of God?" and myste- riously departed as he came. Mr. Sothern's guest was greatly dumfounded, but he was too well bred to ask questions. Re- suming his argument he again g^rew heated- in his remarks, and again the colored man quietly and mys- teriously entered and, clearing his voice, declared : "If you were the devil himself, do you think you could make me like you?" To the guest's surprise the actor took the interrup- tion as a matter of course, so Sothern's visitor in a BLEANOR ROBSON •1-}*.! dazed manner continued his argument, only to be inter- rupted again and again by the same colored intruder, this time with the remark : "I know you now, and God knows I pity you." Mr. Sothern's guest was now too surprised to talk. He sat in a collapsed condition until the same man had entered three separate times, and in an expressionless voice had said : "I am as changeless as the sun. I will carry my soul pure to heaven." "You are the strange woman." "You shall be as beautiful as I am and as happy." This last remark was too much for the man's nerves. He was barely able to gasp. "Sothern, what the does this mean? Is this a joke or an insane asylum? Who is this fellow?" "That," said the actor, "that is simply my dresser, Lewis. His duty is to notify me of the progress of the play by lines. In that manner I know when my cue comes." "Oh," said Mr. Sothern's guest, wiping great beads of perspiration from his face, "I was beginning to be- lieve I had 'em." John Luther Long gave a dinner in Philadelphia in honor of David Belasco, and the latter, in the course of a toast, said : "Henry De Mille and I, in one of the dramas on which we collaborated, used that strong line from the psalms of David, 'Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph ?' " "At a rehearsal the actor to whom this biblical quo- tation fell, took De Mille aside. " 'Look here, Mr. De Mille,' he said, 'that's a funny line about the tri- umph of the wick- ed, ain't it?' "'Why, I don't know ; I rather like it,' said De Mille. " 'Are you stuck on it?' asked the actor. " 'Yes, I confess I am. The fact is,' De Mille explain- ed, 'it isn't my line. It's David's.' "The actor sneered. " 'I thought as much,' he said. 'Any one could tell that that was some more of Dave Belasco's bad Eng- lish.' " JULIA MARLOWE. Charles A. Mason was a great card player in his early days, so much so that his mother, who was a pious woman, said to him one day by way of remon- strance : "A great deal of time is wasted, dear, is there not, in pla}dng cards?" "Yes, mother," he smiled in reply, "there is — ^in shuffling and dealing." Tommy Canovan, a property man in Cleveland, pos- sesses among his personal "props" some amusing stories. Here is one of them : "I used to be on the door at the Lyceum. , One night when Joseph Murphy was playing there, an old Irish lady approached me with a ticket in her hand. Evidently she had never been in a playhouse before and was somewhat bewildered. She watched the line passing by me and listened as I called out "upstairs' or 'downstairs," according to the tickets handed me. Finally she slowly approached and gave me her coupon. "'Upstairsl' I called. " 'Whisper,' she said as she leaned towards me, 'can ye tell me on what floor I can see Joseph Murphy?' " "I attended a performance some years ago," relates Tom Nawn, "in which the hero, upon being reformed, was expected to exclaim: " 'As long as I live I will never drink another drop !' "It was a strong temperance drama, so you can imagine the horror of the audience when the young man, becoming sUghtly rattled, cried out : " 'As long as 1 live 1 will never drop another drink 1'" One of Joseph Jefferson's favorite stories, and one that has been gobbled up and told on or by nearly every actor in the profession, is the one concerning the chronic dead beat. As it followed the coffee when Mr. HENRY IRVING. Jefferson attended a dinner, it generally went like this : "While starring through Indiana several years ago my manager was approached by a man who had the local reputation of being a pass 'worker,' or dead beat. He told the usual yarn about being a former actor and ended by asking for professional courtesies. " 'I would be gfad to oblige you,' said the manager, 'but unfortunately, I haven't a card with me.' Just then a happy thought struck him, and he added: 'I'll tell you what I'll do. I will write the pass where it will be easy for you to show it.' "Leaning over, with a pencil he wrote: 'Pass the bearer' on the fellow's white shirt front and signed his name. The beat thanked him and hastened to the gate. The ticket taker gravely examined the writing and let him take a few steps inside, then he called him back and said, in a loud voice : " 'Hold on, my friend, I forgot. It will be neces- sary for you to leave that pass with me.' " In a curtain speech Ezra Kendall announced that he was writing a book of information for "Rounders Who Go the Cocktail Route." "Did you ever awake in the morning?" he asked his auditors, "and see an animal mirage ? 'It is a dissolving caravan, with everything in it from four paws to no paws. The doctor says my mirages are caused from eating animal crackers when I was a child — and then preserving them in alcohol as I grew up." Wallace Munro tells of an experience he had in a country boarding house. It appears that one of the lodgers yvas rather a mystery, as nobody seemed to know much about him. One day the landlady said to Mr. Munro: "I don't believe that new boarder is a bachelor. I'm sure he must be either a married man or a widower." "Why, how on earth can you tell?" asked Mr. Munro. "Easily enough," replied the veteran housekeeper; "because whenever he pays his board he always turns his back to me when he takes- out his money." Johnny Ray tells a story of an expe- rience he had when comedian of a stock company in Grand Rapids. He imper- sonated a negro porter in a melo- drama, called "A Man With a Mil- lion Faces." In the second act a murder is committed, and Johnny, concealed in a coal box, raises the cover and wit- nesses the deed. On the night in ques- tion he had a bad cold and took "something" for it. The remedy was old fashioned and conducive to sleep. No sooner had he laid down in the box and closed the cover than he fell LILLIAN RUSSELL. fast asleep. When it came time for the villain to strike the fatal blow he hesitated. The cover of the box failed to rise. He hesitated again. A peculiar sound broke Upon the stillness. It was a snore. It came from the box. The villain worked his way over, to Johnny's bed and kicked it viciously. Johnny's only response was a snort. Finally, in desperation, the villain killed his victim several times, while the prompter hoarsely called, "Ray ! Ray !" a cry which the audience promptly took up. But even when the cry rose to a deafening shout, Johnny calmly slept on. In the last act the vil- lain is charged with murder and brought to trial. "Who accuses this man?" inquired the judge. "I do !" said Johnny, jumping up. "Ha — ^where were you at the time the murder was committed ?" asked the judge. Before Johnny could reply a shrill voice came down from the gallery : "He was asleep in the coal box." "Then," said the judge, "take this man out and hang him," and he pointed straight at Johnny. Ben Johnson tells a story concerning an English comedian who had long cherished the idea that he could play Hamlet. At last the chance came. After the per- formance he met a friend who was an influential critic and asked : "How was it?" "Do you want the truth?" "Yes." "It was awful." "I am afraid you're right. I'll never attempt it again." "But you'll have to play it once more. Your per- formance tonight must have made Shakespeare turn in his grave. You can't leave him lying on his stomach. Play Hamlet once more and he'll probably turn over and be comfortable again." Charles Erne s t tells abo u t two green youths of his acquaintance who, having hired a horse and trap for a day's outing, found them- selves at the close of the expedition confronted with the bewildering problem of reharness- ing the animal. The bit proved their chief difficulty, for the horse made no response to their overtures. "Well, there's nothing for it but to wait," said one. "Wait for what?" grumbled the other. "For the horse to yawn," replied his companion. E. H. SOTHERN. It isn't often that a stage aspirant manages to reach the office of Wells Hawks, who is Charles Frohman's right hand man. Of course it was a woman who did the trick. She apparently created a fair impression, for the generally busy Mr. Hawks asked her : "Are you married or unmarried?" "Unmarried — four times !" she demurely replied. "I've heard of hard luck stories," said Jess Dandy, "but one a stranded actor told me last summer carries off the palm. This actor had been out with one of those barnstorming aggregations that move from town to town whenever the sheriff will let them. Salaries were long overdue, and finally in desperation he went to the manager and demanded $25. " 'Twenty-five dollars !' cried the manager, 'why, if I had $25 I'd put out a No. 2 company.' " The elder Sothern was a firm believer in the noisy audience. He considered that the play patron, if he was pleased with the entertainment, should take the trouble and consider it a duty to demonstrate his pleasure. In this connection he used frequently to tell of one occasion when he was playing "Dundreary" in a small town where the manager of the theater had recently been to New York. He had visited the Madison Square theater, at that time under semi-religious management, where dim light prevailed in the auditorium and loud applause was deemed decidedly indecorous. The man- ager returned to his town and gave a quiet "tip" on what was "the real thing" in New York theater manners. Well, Sothern and his com- pany played the first act without evoking a laugh or a "hand." When the curtain fell he Hstened for the customary call, but there was only si- lence — awful silence. Then before the second act he gathered his com- pany and said: "We don't seem to be hitting 'em at all. We must pitch in for all we are worth in this act." Star and company worked like Trojans, but apparently with- out result. At the end of the second act the local man- ager went to Sothern's dressing room and began to congratulate him on his success and to tell him how delighted his audience was. Sothern interrupted him : "Don't guy me," he said. "Why, I haven't heard any laughter or applause." "Laughter — applause," returned the manager, proudly, as he drew himself to his full height and thrust SCHUMANN-HEINK. his hand behind the breast folds of his coat ; "I should hope not, indeed ! There was one man snickered, but we put him out." During rehearsals in the Criterion theater, New York, William Collier went to a nearby quick lunch place for a bite to eat. He called for an order of fried eggs. . Across the table sat a newspaper man, and the waiter asked him for his order. "Give me the same — but fresh ones, mind you?" The waiter sang out to the man behind the par- tition : "Two orders of fried eggs — one of 'em fresh !" The next day Collier sought out a new place to appease his midday hunger. Some twenty years ago, when Wilton Lackaye first went upon the stage, he was rehearsing a part in "Paul Kauvar," under the direction of the author, the late Steele Mackaye, who, while he was admitted to be a very capable stage manager, was considered somewhat old fashioned by the more modern dramatic school. During the rehearsal Mackaye and Lackaye had a slight dispute as to how a part should be acted. "Do you pretend to argue with me?" demanded Mackaye, magisterially. "I have been an acknowledged master of the dramatic art for twenty years." "Yes," said Lackaye, "but not this twenty." Tom Lewis and Dave Ryan were standing on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second street when a stranger ac- costed them. "Do these cars stop at the Battery?" he asked. "If they don't," re- pHed Mr. Lewis, "you'll get an awful ducking." When the Weber & Fields organization was booked to appear in Salt Lake City, Lew Fields received a letter from a Mormon friend request- ing two passes for the show. Mr. Fields hates to issue passes, but this gen- tleman was a particular friend, so he made an exception in his case and forwarded this : CLARA MORRIS. Admit Bearer and ONE wife. Lew Fields. A young actor who had been given an opportunity to try what he could do in a dignified part had finished his first performance of the role when the stage man- ager asked Forbes Robertson, who had witnessed the performance, what he thought of it. "The part demands repose," replied the English actor, "and this young man, I fear, will never acquire repose until he gets it in the grave." The cast was chan^-'i the next night. Joseph Jefferson was sensitive on the subject of his retirement from the stage. The interviewer who put the question of farewell to him generally received a rather sharp but pleasant reply. A reporter in the gouth once got the best of him. The actor came down stairs at the hotel and was much disturbed to find a long but mysteriously worded article in which the word retired was closely connected with his name. He knew the managing editor, and made a half-hearted complaint. The reporter was called in and asked where he got the story. "The city editor told me to see Mr. Jefferson," said the young man, "and ask him if he was going to retire." "Well, did you see him ?" said the editor. "No, sir," said the reporter. "I sent up my card to his room and it was sent back with this written on it : " 'Mr. Jefferson has retired.' " And then the actor, who used to sleep twenty years in every performance, took the reporter out and bought him a f 6 hat. During a performance of "Resurrection" hy the Eugenie Blair company an amusing incident occurred. The trial scene was in progress and the jury had just voted. Then the foreman of the jury arose and sol- emnly said : "There are seven votes for acquittal, five for convic- tion — the accused is found guilty !" The occasion was so impressive that it was several mo- ments before the au- dience appreciated the mistake, and then there was a long and mighty laugh. "The most sarcas- tic dramatic criti- cism that I ever read," says Russ Whytal, "was that which appeared in a Texas newspaper in the course of an engagement in Austin of a company with which I was associated in my early days. The morning after our debut in Austin I picked up a local sheet, and as I skimmed over its pages my eye was caught by a short FRITZI SCHEFF. paragraph bearing the head 'Current News Items.' These items read as follows : "'Rainstorm in Galveston, lasting twenty-eight minutes.' " 'Hailstorm in Langtry, ten minutes.' " 'Windstorm in Houston, two days.' " 'Barnstorm in Austin Opera House, one night.' " Sometimes there rs a feeling expressed that the theater managers are conscienceless, with no thought above the money paid in at the box office windows. But there are honest managers and conscientious managers the world over. Beerbohm Tree knew one such in England. He tells of him in describing the smallest audience on record, consisting of one man. The play, nevertheless, went on in the provincial theater, where this audience was gathered. But the manager between the acts peeped out from behind the curtain and saw that the house was empty. "Where is the audience?" he said, anxiously, to the usher. "He has gone out sir," the usher answered. "Will he return?" asked the manager. "Positively. He expressed himself as well pleased with the production." "Ah," said the manager with a look of relief, "then let the performance proceed." At a banquet Charles Dickson once told of a clergy- man who went fishing. He was perched in a precari- ous position, when he got a bite, and in his excitement he fell into the stream. He yelled lustily for help, and a farmer came along and pulled him out. "How did you come to fall in?" inquired his res- cuer. "I didn't come to fall in," replied the dripping preacher. "I came to fish." De Wolf Hopper had a slight cold one night, and in a curtain speech he referred to it in this fashion : "I went to my doctor," he said, "and the doctor said I had been eating too much nitrogenous food and must stop and eat farinacious food. Since then I haven't .been eating at all, for I don't know what either word means." ANNA HELD. Sarah Bernhardt possesses wit as well as common sense. A well known French palmist was considering going to England to practice her art and was in doubt as to whether she would be as successful on the other side of the channel as she had been at home. Among other people she consulted Mme. Bernhardt on the subject. "Would I succeed if I went to London?" the palmist asked. "You had better look at your hand and find out," was the reply. The following story illustrates W. S. Gilbert's quick wit: Gilbert was dining at a stock broker's, and his right hand neighbor persisted in talking to him of plays and operas, although she was an extremely ignorant person. One of her remarks was : "I am very fond of Wagner. What is he composing now?" "Wagner," said Mr. Gilbert, "is decomposing now." Frederick Perry saved himself a dismissal from serv- ices with a western stock company on one occasion by the exercise of an inventive mind. "Dame Fortune was extremely reticent when I went upon the stage, and for weeks I was unable to convince managers that I deserved a chance," he explains in tell- ing of the incident. "I was engaged at last as 'utility man' for a stock company in a western city. We opened with a war play in which I had a difficult minor part m every act — each unimportant and each short. "I got along very well as an 'elderly' southern gen- tleman in the first act, as a 'colored servant' in the second act, and then I had a quick change to an 'or- derly' in the third act. This is where the trouble began. I was trying hard to buckle on a sword belt, when some one called : 'Perry, it's near you,' and I hurried to the SARAH BERNHARDT. stage in time to hear the galloping horse effect which signaled my approach. Some one threw fuller's earth all over me to show that I had been riding hard when my cue came, and I rushed madly on with important dis- patches for Gen. Allen. When I reached the center of the stage and the applause had subsided — for this mes- senger was quite an important personage — I reached into my jacket for the dispatches on which the climax of the play depended. "I had forgotten them! It seemed as if all the people in the world were looking at me, and that the revolution of the earth upon its axis depended on those precious documents. Again I thrust my hand Into the empty pocket. "The wait was growing awful, when a brilliant thought flashed across my mind. I threw open my shirt, tore off a porous plaster I was wearing, and slipped it into the general's hand. A salvo of applause followed. The audience thought I had been shot and had covered the wound with the dispatches !" One night when Adelaide Neilson was playing the potion stene in "Romeo and Juliet," one of the most impressive examples of this great artist's power, she had just reached the agonizing line, "What if this mix- ture do not work ?" when a clear voice from the gallery promptly suggested: "Then take a pill r Martin Harvey is held responsible for this: At a reception in London attended by actors and musicians a singer was requested by an extremely sedate-looking individual to oblige with the Japanese national anthem. It was explained to him that the tune was the same as "God Save the King," and that all he had to do was to pronounce the Japanese words provided for him on a sheet of paper, precise- ly as they were spelled. Accordingly up rose the willing warbler and burst out with the fol- lowing lyric : O wa ta na syam, O wa ta na syam, O wa ta na syam. An na syam I He was only pulled up by roars of delight- ed laughter from con- tinuing the confession. There was no encore. J. H. STODDART. Mrs. Scott Siddons was once playing Juliet at the London Haymarket theater, when an unrehearsed inci- dent occurred in the last act. Paris was duly slain and Juliet lay stretched upon her bier. Just then some of the scenery caught fire, but the stage hands soon extin- guished it. Juliet, with commendable presence of mind, did not move an eyelid, but the corpse of Paris was nervous. He raised himself up to a sitting posture, then got upon his feet and fled from the stage. The danger being removed, his courage returned, and the audience was afforded the pleasing spectacle of a corpse crawling along the stage from the wings to take up the proper position for the final curtain. In an emotional drama in which Olga Ncthersole appeared early in her career, the heroine, played by Miss Nethersole, was tearfully deploring the death of her lover, who had been slain in a duel by the villain of the play. "What, oh what," she hysterically cried, "is left for me now? What is left for me now ?" And the shrill voice of the fruit vender in the gallery seemingly made reply : "Oranges and peanuts, oranges and peanuts !" Some stage stories are good because they are true; some are good because they sound true, and some are good because they are such awful lies. An excellent example of the impossible kind is taken from Harper's Magazine. In it it is related how the elder Wallack once played in a romantic drama in which, after taking an impassioned leave of the heroine, he leaped on a horse which stood just in the wings and dashed across the stage. Wallack objected to this nightly gallop, and it was therefore arranged that one of the supers, who closely resembled the actor, should make the ride. He was accordingly dressed exactly like Wallack and sent to the theater to rehearse. He carried off his part well, and the stage manager departed. But the super was not satisfied, and complained to a young member of the company who happened to be present*. "Why, see here," he said, "that thing is too dead easy. A man with a wooden lee could do it with his eyes shut. I used to be in a circus. Couldn't I stand up on this here equine and do a few stunts ?" "Certainly," exclaimed the other; "that would be all right. Go ahead." "You think the old party wouldn't object?" said the super, doubtfully. ELLEN TERRY. "Object!" returned the player. "Why, he'd be tickled to death. Do it." That evening when the critical point was reached Wallack was gratified to see his counterpart standing ready beside the horse. "Love, good night — good night," cried the hero, preparing to drop over the edge of the balcony. "Stay!" cried the heroine, clinging round his neck. "You ride perhaps to death 1" "Nay, sweet, say not so; I ride to honor! With thoughts of thee in my heart no harm can come ! Good night — ^good night !" He tore himself from her frantic embrace and dropped out of sight of the audience. "Go !" he hissed to the man. As the horse leaped forward on to the stage the fellow gave a mighty vault and alighted standing on its bare back. He threw up one foot gracefully and danced easily on the other, and just before it was too late leaped into the air, turned a somersault, landed on the horse's back, and bounded lightly to the stage. Lew Dockstader tells the following prize hard luck tale: "The other day on a train I made the acquaintance of a young man who seemed down on his luck, and after our acquaintanceship had developed into something ap- proaching intimacy, I ventured to inquire the cause of his deep-seated gloom. " 'Well,' he said, 'I've been up against it for fair. Put every cent I had in the world into an 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' show. Had a man named Silverstein as treas- urer. Smart, thrifty fellow, that Silverstein. Been out about ^wo weeks, and was over 400 bones to the good. Woke up one morning and found that Silverstein had sneaked with the cash. I said to myself, 'I'll catch the cuss,' so I set the bloodhounds we had in the show on his trail." " 'Did they catch him?' I asked. " 'Catch him? Sure they did. They caught up with him, and he put chains around their necks and started another 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' show.' " A New York man- ager once sent a tel- egram to a young man asking if he would play a week's engagejnent in Ne- braska. "I want th r e e hundred dollars for the week," promptly wired the young man. Twelve hours later this answer came back : "Stop kidding. I can get the governor of Nebraska to play a week for three hundred dollars." ETHEL. BARRTMORB. Apropos of the story that the late Eugene Field once criticised a performance of "Hamlet" by making the bare statement that "Mr. Blank acted Hamlet last night and acted it until 11:30 o'clock," John F. Ward tells of a similar criticism that was once given of a perform- ance in which he figured prominently. It was in a small western city and on account of a railroad wreck the company arrived in town very late, consequently the play went badly. So bad, indeed, was it that no con- scientious critic could do else than give it a "roast." The editor of the one daily paper, however, thought it unnecessary to go into details, so he simply wrote: "John F. Ward appeared at the opera house last night. The ventilation of the theater was perfect and the orchestra rendered several pleasing airs." Paula Edwardes once received a letter, the writer of which must have been a polite lunatic. It read as follows : "Dear Miss Edwardes: Knowing you to be inter- ested in anything novel in theatrical entertainment, I should like to make an appointment to show you my collection of trained germs. They have the well known flea circus skinned to death. The star of the company is a typhoid fever bacillus, named Mike, who can stand on all seven of his hands and whistle 'Home, Sweet Home' through his teeth. I have also two young measles microbes who do a sister act and a family of diphtheria baccili, the youngest of which can tuck his limbs under his neck and sit on both ears at once. The performance can be given on a stage two inches square. Kindly let me know when and where you will see me." Marie Dressier tells of a Tammany politician whose wife is a'model of all the domestic virtues. Among her other ac- complishments is a tal- ent for making home- made bread. One even- ing she had finished set- ting the batch of dough to rise in the kitchen and was resting herself in the parlor, when the silence was disturbed by her six-year-old son, who came running up- stairs, crying, "Mamma, mamma! There's a mouse jumped into your bread pan !" The good woman was much perturbed and fran- tically asked : "Did you take him out ?" "No'm; I threw the cat in, an' she's diggin' after him to beat the band !" MABEL TALIAFERRO. During an engagement of "Arizona" in a small Con- necticut town an elderly gentleman, with multifarious whiskers, accompanied by his wife, occupied seats in the last row of the orchestra. Underneath the setting forth of the cast in the program was the usual synopsis of the scenes, and the last line read : "Act 4 same as act 1." When the curtain fell on the third act the old man picked up his hat and umbrella and said to his com- panion : "Come along, Maria. We can catch that 10:30 train if we hurry. The program says the last act is the same as the fust, and I don't see no use of waiting to look at it over again." And they hustled off home- ward. When produced in London for the first time Ber- nard Shaw's play, "Arms and the Man," was heartily received. At the fall of the curtain there were clamor- ous calls for the author, to which Mr. Shaw was at length induced to respond. The audience was still cheering, but there was one dissenting voice in the gal- lery that was "booing" with the full power of a very strong pair of lungs. Mr. Shaw looked up at the dis- turber and said, very seriously : "Yes, sir, I quite agree with you ; but what can we two do against a whole houseful ?" "They gave me a hard jolt on my last visit to Lafay- ette, Ind.," said Tim Murphy. "A rural gentleman was the author of the joke that was perpetrated and I rather felt that the ticket taker and myself were the victims. The jay walked up to the ticket taker and said : " 'How much does it cost to see Murphy tonight ?' " 'First floor $1.50, dress circle f 1, and 25 cents in the gallery," replied the ticket man. "The countryman thought a moment. Then he asked: "'What is he playing in the gal- lery?'" Nate Salsbury and Bill Nye were great friends. When the humorist first en- gaged in newspaper work the showman went to dinner with him. Nye exploded some new stories, and Salsbury, turn- ing to his host's little girl, said : "Very clever papa you've got, my dear." "Yes," responded the demure little miss, "when there's company." JOHNNY RAT. J. p. Caddagan tells of an attempt to hold up an actor in New York. The Thespian in relating his ex- perience, said : "As I was coming along the street a fellow jumped in front of me and, presenting a pistol, called out : 'Give me your money or I'll blow out your brains !' " "And what did you do?" asked Mr. Caddigan. "Simply told him to blow away— that I would rather be in New York without brains than without money." Jess Dandy admits with commendable frankness that he cannot make a speech and those who have heard his efiforts in this direction entirely agree with him. A few seasons ago Dandy was to be remembered by the mem- bers of his company with a substantial gift at the close of the engagement. The presentation was to take place on the stage in full view of the audience after the per- formance. Two days in advance a member of the com- pany, knowing Dandy's weakness as a speechmaker, quietly told him that the company would present him with a handsome watch and it would be a good scheme to have some impromptu remarks ready. For three days Dandy labored on his speech. He wrote and rewrote it and then committed it to memory. It was graceful — something about remembering the faces of his friends when he looked at the face of the watch and the fact that its hands would recall the warm grasp of their hands and a lot of stuff like that. The night of the presentation came and the leading man stepped forward as Dandy was leaving the stage and told him that he had a little gift for him. The audience was on tip toe and Dandy looked sufficiently surprised. The speaker made quite an elaborate address to which Dandy paid attention al- though all the while he was running over the remarks about the hands on the watch. Concluding his address the leading man said : "And now, Mr. Dandy, on behalf of the company I take great pleasure in presenting you with this slight testimonial — this gold headed cane." Dandy was paralyzed. He muttered a few inco- herent words and fled from the stage like a scared school- boy. He says, how- ever, that if the gift had been a watch he would have made the hit of his life as a speechmaker. Channing Pollock is a young man whose future was nearly ruined by an ambitious laundry- man. Mr. Pollock is known as a play- wright. He has al- ready turned out several efforts and has a dozen other ideas in his head. Once upon a time he received an order for a play. "After agreeing to write it," he says, "I had to look up a lot of data in a library. When I had occupied two hours MINNIE MADDBRN PISKE. in reaching the Hbrary and another two in finding the books I needed I discovered I had no note paper, so I carefully took all the required notes on my cuffs. Both of them were filled with scribbling when I started home. "The next afternoon I was ready for work and looked around for the cuffs. The laundryman had them." Some years Lew Dockstader was interested in a col- ored minstrel company and had, early one summer, en- gaged a colored comedian, Ebenezer Elisha Jones, for the next season. One day Ebenezer Elisha came around to inquire as to advanced salary. He was mighty hungry, he explained, and didn't have a dollar he could call his own. Dockstader told him that he would see the treasurer of the company, and just as the colored man was leaving suggested that he had better sign his contract, which he had previously failed to do. Ebenezer hesitated a minute and then warily observed : "Well, I'll sign, Massa Dockstader; I'll sign it, all right, but, fo' God, I'se so hungry I don' reckon I'll ever live to fill it." This story is related anent the absent mindedness of Henry Irving : He and Marshall P. Wilder were riding home from a theater in a cab one evening when Sir Henry suddenly announced that he had recently heard a story which he considered worthy of being inter- polated in the Wilder monologue. "Let's have it," said Wilder. "Well," said the tragedian, "it seems that " Then followed a long silence. After a few blocks had been passed Irving muttered, "and you see," and then there was another — for Wilder — ^painful silence. Finally the tragedian laughed softly, saying : "Now, isn't that droll ?" He had told the story to himself. Edward McWade, the author of "Winchester," tells the following story : Pat and Mike, a couple of newly arrived immigrants, were much astonished at the sights of New York city, and when night came they sought lodgings in a hotel. The noise was too much for Pat, and he couldn't sleep. So he got up and sat by the window. Just then a fire engine, spouting flame and smoke, rattled noisily past. Pat looked at it in aston- ishment. He had never seen anything like it before. In alarm he called out to Mike. Mike snored peace- fully. In a few minutes another engine clattered into view, more sparks and smoke pouring from the stack. This was too much for Pat. "Mike, Mike," he shouted, "get up, quick !" "What's the matter ?" growled Mike sleepily. "Matter enough," replied Pat. "Shure an' they're moving hell and two loads have already gone by !" Andrew Mack was illustrating the danger of giving advice, and he told of a theatrical manager who adopted the line, "Go where the crowds go," as a sort of trade mark and used it on all his literature and posters. "The scheme worked pretty well," said Mr. I\Iack, "until the theatrical man struck a town at the time a circus was there. Then the suggestion, 'Go whete the crowds go' proved a boomerang, for the crowds were going to the circus, and the theatrical man went broke." "While walking along Sixth avenue," said Kyrle Bellew, "I saw an actor who used to play in my com- pany, who had had a run of very bad luck. He was standing outside a pawnshop, evidently having an argu- ment with a policeman. Drawing near, I overheard the bluecoat say: " 'Come, young fellow, get a move on you.' " 'Oh, I don't know,' retorted the actor, 'I think I've got a right to look into my own clothes box.' " According to Harper's Weekly the "Sho-Gun" com- pany once played in a little town in Iowa, where the local opera house was presided over by a townsman whose experience had been more agricultural than dra- matic. He had an important idea of himself, which was was noticeable in signs of his own handiwork that he placed around the theater. Here is the gem of the lot, orthography, syntax, and all, just as he wrote it : NoTlS EvErY bODY iS OflshUly hereBy wARNed to NoT SmoKE iN THis HerE house thOSE So cOT DOin wil bE PROMtly EjjeCTED. DAM IT— I muST hav SOm SisTOM. SIned. Danl Tibbets. In the earlier days of his success Henry Irving was extensive- ly billed as the "Fa- mous Henry Irving." After a time he de- cided that this an- nouncement should be modified and,send- ing for the printer, told him that in the future the announce- ment was to read just simple Henry Irving. The printer, unfortu- nately, followed the instructions too liter- ally, and shortly aft- erwards Sir Henry was amazed to find that the town in which he was appearing was flooded with posters stat- GABRIEIiLB REJANB. ing that representations of certain famous dramas were being given by "Simple Henry Irving." Robert B. Mantell tells the following story about himself: In "The Taming of the Shrew" I once played Petruchio and placed great stress on the whip cracking episode in the play. At one of the rehearsals cracking the great whip with much noise but little care I clipped the leg of a stage hand at the rear and entangled the whiplash about one of his buttons. The smarting stage hand had in other days been con- nected with a circus, and his opinion of actors as com- pared with the masters of the circus ring was small in- deed. Stretching his head toward another stage hand and quite ignoring my apologies he said in disgusted tones : "What a bloomin' fool! 'E'd never make a ring- master !" Like all successful men, Marshall P. Wilder has his imitators and rivals, though in the vaudeville field the latter are few and far between. He was recently asked his opinion concerning a certain variety monologist, and with characteristic generosity he said everything complimentary about his rival's cleverness and hoped he was doing well. "Dear me!" exclaimed the inquirer, "but that isn't at all the way he speaks about you. He has the very opposite of a good opinion of you." "Ah," returned Wilder; "well, perhaps we're both mistaken." JEFFERSON D'ANGELIS. Not so very long ago William Dean Howells visited a vaudeville theater, where a young woman on the stage was about to give a trapeze exhibition. She wore a par- ticularly hideous costume. Before beginning her spe- cial stunt she thought it was necessary to sing, as most vaudeville artists do, for some entirely unknown reason. In an unutterably awful voice she bawled : "Oh, were I in the wildest waste." Mr. Howells turned to his companion and said : "She is. That is undoubtedly the wildest waist I have ever seen." Louis James tells a story of a time when he was brought into grave peril on account of his nose. He was going to Leadville in the early days on a stage coach which was held up by highwaymen. The pas- sengers were ranged in a row outside with their hands up, the familiar attitude being enforced by a gun in the hands of one of the gentlemen of the road, while the other went through the various pockets at his leisure. In the midst of the ceremony Mr. James' nose began to itch with that persistency calculated to drive one into insanity if not relieved. Involuntarily his right hand began to lower itself to the seat of trouble. "Hands up, there !" called the man behind the gun. His hand shot back into place, but in a moment began to lower itself again. "What's the matter with you?" inquired the bandit. "Are you anxious to become a lead mine ?" "My nose itches so I can't stand it any longer," said Mr. James, "I've simply got to scratch it." "No, you ain't," replied the agent, "because I'll do it for you." And with that he proceeded to scratch the actor's nose with the muzzle of his shotgun. One of May Edouin's favorite stories tells of an experience in the Adirondacks. The actress was both- e r e d about the washing. A guide r e c o m m e nded a woman who had seen better days and who lived a lit- tle ways down the lake. Miss Edouin sent for her and engaged her. Two days later she saw a scene that reminded her of "Elaine." It was her washer- grace van studdiford. woman paddling in a dugout behind a heap of snowy linen. "Less'n a year ago," said the woman apologetically, "I wouldn't a-had to use the boat. I brung it then by the colt. But one day he up an' got colic or suthin' an' rolled over on the grass an' died. My, but how we miss that colt ! We'd had him twenty years. J. H. Stoddart used to tell a story of dramatic "busi- ness" that turned a performance of "Camille" into a comedy. In an intense scene between Camille and Armand a servant was to enter with lights. "In those days," said Mr. Stoddart, "sea island cot- ton was stage ice cream, just as molasses and water was stage wine, sherry or port, according to the pro- portion of molasses. Armand and Camille were seated at the table where they had been enjoying such viands as these, and their dialogue was making the very best sort of an impression on a crowded house. Then in came that maid servant with the wobbliest sort of can- delabra. The scene was so engrossing that she was scarcely noticed, but when she set down her burden between the lovers and one candle toppled over and put the ice cream in a blaze — ^well, the strain was broken. The entire audience burst into a laugh, and the curtain had to be rung down." Sir Henry Irving told in London of an incident he says occurred during his last visit to the United States. It is one of his yarns to show the quick wit of the New York street arab. "I was strolling down Broadway one afternoon with my long locks floating over the collar of my top coat, when a newsboy rushed up to me, and gesticulating vio- lently, shouted at me in a tragic voice : " 'Back ! back, Sir Henry ! Fly for your life !' "I confess I was a bit flustered, and as I looked ner- vously around, I asked : 'What's the matter, my lad ?' " ' 'Orrible danger, sir ! There's a barber in that hotel opposite I' " Years ago, when Willis Sweatnam was a struggling minstrel, he landed in Seattle penniless. He had a prospective position in 'Frisco, but the trouble was get- ting there. He finally gave a concert, at which he was the sole entertainer, and managed to get enough for a second-class ticket. He did not have the price of meals, so figured that during the trip he would follow the plan of many latter day actors, who sleep during the day to keep from eating. Sweatnam kept this plan up for two days, by which time he had accumulated a fine edge to his appetite. When the dinner bell rang one day a fel- low passenger asked him if he was going to dine. "No," replied the actor, "I have just risen, and make it a point never to eat just after rising." When evening came he read to keep his mind oS the supper table. By noon the next day he was ready to commit murder and arson for a good hunk of bread "like mother used to make." By nightfall Sweatnam was told that the boat would dock at 10 o'clock, and the wait until that hour seemed so interminable that he decided to go in and have one meal if he was sent to jail for it. After he had satisfied the gnawing, ravenous hunger of three days accumula- tion, he called the waiter and asked for the bill, intend- ing, when it was presented, to say he had lost his money. "Bill," said the waiter, "why, there ain't no bill ; the meals are included with the ticket." Sweatnam went forward and breathed sulphurous maledictions on a heartless world. "Old Adam Forepaugh," relates Denman Thomp- son, "once had a big white parrot that had learned to say : " "One at a time, gentlemen — one at a time — don't rush !' "The bird, of course, had acquired this sentence from the ticket taker of the show. Well, one day the parrot got lost in the country, and Mr. Forepaugh started out post haste to hunt for it. "People here and there who had seen the parrot di- rected him in his quest, and finally, as he was driving past a cornfield, he was overjoyed to hear a familiar voice. "He got out of his buggy and entered the field and found the parrot in the middle of a flock of crows that had picked him until he was almost featherless. As the crows bit and nipped away, the parrot, lying on his side, repeated over and over : " 'One at a time, gentlemen — one at a time — don't rush!'" William M. MacDonald tells this : "During my summer outing I had need to call on the village doctor. As he opened the office door a lanky, bony, yet shrewd looking farmer pushed past me. Be- fore I could recover from the shock, the doctor — ^red in the face — appeared and an- grily shouted: " 'Say ! I charge for my advice!' " 'Just so,' called back the farmer, 'but I ain't a-goin' to take it!'" HENRIETTA CROSMAN. Joseph Sheehan is a living example of the fact that the path of the opera singer is not always a smooth one. A few years ago when Mr. Sheehan had finished his studies abroad and was on his way home his grand- mothel" asked his mother what the son was doing. "Oh, he is singing now." The grandmother thought it was a nice way of earn- ing a livelihood and decided she would visit her grand- son and hear him sing. So when the young man re- turned home she was there to greet him. "And what do you do now?" she inquired. "I'm a singer now," said Sheehan. "And what do you sing?" "Oh, 'Carmen,' 'Bohemian Girl,' 'Faust,' 'Tann- hauser' and a few other operas." "What, you sing these Dago and Dutch songs ?" re- torted the old woman. "And why don't you sing the 'Wearin' o' the Green' and other good old Irish songs that your father used to sing?" And another young Sheehan immediately became the favorite grandson. It's a wise comic opera star that knows his own chorus. Jefferson De Angelis confessed as much re- cently, after he had stumbled over a young woman idling on the stage stairway of the Herald Square thea- ter in New York. "You should be on the stage," the actor said au- thoritatively, as he spied the maiden and noted the chorus girls were taking places in the stage scene. "I guess not," the young miss answered, without the least show of apprehension that she was being ad- monished by a superior. Surprised at what he considered effrontery, the star observed the girl's costume. "Oh, I see," he said, "you arrived late — didn't have time to get all of the clothes of the part on, and " "Nothing like it," the young miss answered. Taken further aback by what to him was clearly boldness, the comedian said: "Maybe, then, young woman, you will please tell me why it is that, instead of idling on this stairway, you are not out there in your place on the stage ?" "Because," said the young Venus in the picture hat, JOHN DREW. "I am not an actress — I am the janitor's daughter, anvl I am waiting here for my father." "Is this Doose's?" said a mud-splashed expressman as he backed his wagon, loaded with towering trunks, up to the sidewalk in front of a grocery store on Lar- rabee street, Chicago. "Yes ? Well, lend me a hand with these little band- boxes, will you?" He landed one enormous trunk on a case of eggs and brought out the proprietor, Harry Doose, on the run. Mr. Doose disclaimed ownership of the trunks, and in the argument which followed it was discovered that the trunks belonged to Eleonora Duse, the actress, who had just arrived in Chicago. The trunks reached The Auditorium annex by nightfall, and quieted Mme. Duse, who spent the better part of the afternoon ex- claiming: "My trunks! My trunks! Only eleven here ? Where are the other five ?" Henry E. Dixey was at one time a magician, and he relates the following experience: "I had a card trick which I worked with the eight of clubs. I would ask a man in the audience to pick out a card, tear it up, put it in a revolver and shoot at a glass target. The card would then appear on .the glass. In this particular town a young fellow who was pres- ent with his sweetheart picked out the card and fired the revolver. " 'There,' said I, 'the eight of clubs, as I told you a moment ago.' " 'That hain't the card,' said the fellow. "I knew it was, for there were nothing but eight spots in the deck. I let the fellow argue for a while and then I had him come on the stage. " 'What is your business?' I asked. " 'I'm a lawyer,' said he. " 'And you say the eight of chibs was not the card?' " 'That's what I say,' he answered. "I turned to the audience, showed the deck and said, 'Ladies and gen- tlemen, this fellow is the biggest liar in your citv. There was noth- ing in the deck but eight spots and they were all clubs.' "The audience roared, the coun- try lawyer sneaked off the stage and went back to his ^^^ mannering. sweetheart, who refused to talk to him again. That was a case of where the magician got the best of it." De Wolf Hopper, after a performance, wandered into a hotel bar, and, sitting down with a friend at a table, his companion ordered two cocktails. The waiter returned with the statement that it was impossible to fill the order,, as the bar closed on Saturday nights promptly at 12. "My boy," said Hopper, "I'll show you the efficacy of a name." Turning to the waiter he exclaimed : "You go back and tell that bartender that those cocktails are for De Wolf Hopper." Almost instantly the waiter returned with the cock- tails, and while the actor was expatiating on the value of his name in particular and all the great names in gen- eral, the bartender came out and, snatching the drinks off the table, reprimanded the waiter for serving drinks after hours. "Who did you say those drinks were for?" asked the barkeeper. "Why," replied the humiliated waiter, "I said they were for De Wolf Hopper." "Well," said the barkeeper, "he can't have them. I thought you said they were for Wolf, de copper." Chauncey Olcott recalls with much unction a story that Maurice Barrymore once told him. It bore on Barrymore's earlier histrionic experience and on an oc- casion when he was barnstorming through the west. The hotels were of a character that left much to be de- sired, and one house in particular, he considered the limit. In the morning when the men of the company met in the hotel office after breakfast, one of them said to Barrymore : "How did you sleep last night ?" "I didn't sleep at all," was the reply. "I was kept awake by insomnia." Then the landlord spoke up and wrathfully said : "I'll bet ye five there ain't one in the house !" Here is a story concerning Raymond Hitchcock : Mr. Hitchcock once spent the summer months on the other side of the Atlantic, and in the course of his travels struck a little town in southern France. One morning Hitchcock, coming down to breakfast at the inn in which he was staying, was delighted to see the familiar face of a friend. Of course, the two Ameri- cans breakfasted together, and during the meal the friend made frequent inquiries as to the comedian's suc- cess in the role of King Dodo. Now it happened that the waiters at this particular inn were members of one of the most rabid bands of Anarchists in all the country. They were ignorant and knew practically no English, but one word they did know and that word was "king," and it afifected them like a red flag does a Spanish bull. The constant use of the word in the conversation of the two Americans aroused a suspicion in the mind of the waiter who served them. "Here," thought the waiter, "is a member of royalty traveling incog — per- haps on some terrible mission; perhaps he is planning to overthrow the republic." At any rate when he came down to the table at noon Mr. Hitchcock found under his plate a bit of paper care- fully folded and sealed and addressed to "King Do Do." Much surprised, Mr. Hitchcock tore open the mis- sive, and scrawled upon it in a mixture of bad French and worse English was the following : "Death to all kings! We give you two hours to leave the country. Then death ! Go ere it is too late." Mr. Hitchcock says that he went. James Jay Brady is a press agent. In the summer he precedes the circus ; in the winter he goes a head of a "show." He is always busy, and for several years his duties have kept him in the west. Recently his for- tunes changed and he got a glimpse of the big town across from what used to be Brooklyn. It was like a trip to fairyland. A friend met Brady on the street, noted his smile of satisfaction, and inquired : "Well, Jay, guess you are glad to get back to the big town ?" "To tell the truth," replied Brady, "it has been so long since I was in New York that I have to rehearse to cross Broadway." Manager Sam S. Shubert once had an amusing ex- perience at the Casino. On a Saturday afternoon a woman who had purchased a 50-cent balcony seat was observed by the chief usher to wander down into the orchestra, where she took a stand in one of the aisles. The usher politely informed her there was no stand- ing room for sale on the first floor. "Oh, that'll be all right," was her cheerful response, but without making a move. Treasurer Corn- stock was then asked to use his p e r s u a sive elo- quence to induce the solitary standee to occupy the space her coupon called for. But Mr. Corn- stock only got from the woman a chilly glare and the ejacu- lation, "I beg your pardon, sir !" And she said it in such a way as to indi- cate that she felt an apology was coming to her and that she hoped to get it by first begging somebody else's pardon — in a sarcastic way, of course. Comstock retired and Manager Shubert took up the verbal cudgels. "You paid orily 50 cents for your coupon," said he, "and it does not entitle you to stand dbwn stairs. We KYRLB BELLEW. are not selling standing room here anyhow this after- noon." "What do you charge for your standing room down here when you do sell it ?" demanded the woman. "A dollar," was Mr. Shubert's response. "Then I'll stand on one foot during the rest of the performance," she replied. "During one of my trips through Europe," said Charles Hawtrey, "I found myself in a small village with no razors. They had been packed in my hand- bag, which I had left at the hotel where I stopped the day before. There was no barber shop in the place and I was in a quandary as to how I might get shaved. The innkeeper told me that there was a man in the village who occasionally shaved people, and I determined to risk a cut or two and send for him. The amateur bar- ber arrived, and after a little hesitation he said to me : " 'Will you please, sir, lie down flat on your back while I shave you, sir?' "Thinking that it was probably the custom of the country, I stretched out comfortably on my back and nearly went to sleep while the fellow shaved me, so light was his touch. When he had finished I said : "'I am curious to know why you asked me to lie down to be shaved ?' " 'Because, sir,' was his ingenious reply, "I never before shaved a live man.' " LESLIE CARTER. In a London theater the names given to the various seats are a little puzzling to an American. During a recent trip abroad Richard Mansfield sent his coach- man to a theater to buy "stalls." The man, who is at home in the stables, but not in the theater, returned in due time. "Did you get the stalls?" inquired the actor. "No, sir," said the coachman, "the stalls were all gone, sir ; but they told me they could give me a — well, that they could put you in a loose box, sir." "On one occasion," said George Backus, "I de- cided to take a house in the suburbs, and after consid- erable hunting about found one that suited me exactly. The rent seemed so cheap that I was on the point of signing the lease at once, when I decided to see how the afifair looked by gaslight. That night I was making a second tour of the premises, and went into the dining room. It was a balmy summer night and as I threw open a window to enjoy the breeze I was startled by a queer tapping sound. "Knock ! knock ! knock ! "I pricked up my ears and listened. There was si- lence for a moment, and the noise continued. I turned to the caretaker and said : " 'See here, my friend, I know now why this house is so cheap. There's a ghost on the premises.' " 'Oh, no, sir,' he said, by way of reassuring me, 'that's only the noise from the coffin factory across the way. They often work there nights.' "And I decided." concluded Mr. Backus, sign the lease." 'not MAXINB ELLIOTT. One day Mr. Mansfield's special train was whipping through Kansas. The actor's own private car was, against his usual custom, attached to the extreme rear of the train, so that, like a whip lash, it got the full ben- efit of all the speed. Three of the star's Kansas City friends were dining with him in his car. He was on his way to open in Denver, and they had come out a couple of hundred miles to wish him good speed on his western trip. The whole party was at the table and Mr. Mansfield was lift- ing a spoonful of soup to his lips when the train plunged around a sudden curve. The effect was somewhat dis- concerting, and Mr. Mansfield called his old waiter. "Jefferson," he said, "I would like to speak to the conductor." The conductor came back through the train, took off his cap, and asked what was wanted. "How fast is the train running just now?" asked the actor. "About sixty-eight miles an hour, sir." "Well, aren't you afraid," purred the tragedian, "that my guests will get indigestion by eating so fast?" The conductor went forward and in a few minutes the speed of the train slackened perceptibly. William C. Boyd tells an amusing story relating to the late John Stetson. "Stetson was a very ignorant fellow in some ways," said Boyd, "and was always inclined to refer to himself with a red circle around the letter 'I.' At his Boston office he once had an assistant manager by the name of Sharp. One day Sharp saw fit to have some signs painted and placed in front of the theater designating the time of certain matinee performances. He pro- cured an artist and placed him at work, giving him, among other notices, the following copy : " 'Minstrel Matinee at 2 o'clock, sharp.' "After the work had been finished Stetson was called out to inspect it. Scarcely had his eyes rested on the sign in question when his face grew red with indignation, and he blurted out : " 'See here, Sharp, I want you to distinctly under- stand that I am manager of this house, and not you. Please explain to me why you have placed your name on that sign. Have it changed at once to read : " 'Minstrel Matinee at 2 o'clock, Stetson.' " Once upon a time a large dinner was given to a number of distinguished musical artists in New York. Paderewski and the DeReszke brothers were among the guests. Toward the end of the evening someone, amid the confusion and exchange of toasts, propounded the question : "Who is the most popular artist upon the musical stage?" Like a flash Jean De Reszke cried : "Pas De Reszke !" (Paderewski.) When the "Foxy Quiller" company arrived in Den- ver Richard Golden, the star, and Adolph Zink hap- pened to enter the hotel together. Golden is a man of medium height, while Zink stands only three feet, nine inches in his shoes, being the famous lilliputian come- dian. The clerk, looking down at Zink, took him for Gol- den's son. "Your rate will be as usual, Mr. Golden," said the clerk, "but we won't charge anything for the boy." Zink, being thirty years old and just like any other man, except for his height, was furious. But before he could utter a word Golden saw a splendid oppor- tunity for a practical joke. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Come, son, we'll go up to the room." Zink, instead of making a fuss, walked off with Gol- den and bided his time. That evening, when the clerk had "tumbled" to the little man's identity, he started to apologize, but Zink wouldn't let him talk at all and went on occupying the same room as Golden. At the end of the week the clerk handed Zink his bill. Then the little man handed it back with the remark : "Oh, no, that isn't mine. 'Papa' will pay my bill." John E. Henshaw of the "Sho-Gun" company, writ- ing of his one-night-stand experiences last season, says : "In Minnesota I met one of the real old-time trage- dians, who looked like he might have stepped from the pages of a comic weekly. He was telling of what a hard time he was having, and reiterated the statement that Shakespeare spells failure. 'Why, sir,' said he, 'in one town I noticed a little fellow on several occasions carrying a huge basket of eggs. I saw him so often. and always with such large quantities of eggs, that I finally asked him why he had so many eggs and what he was going to do with them. 'I am collecting "