"mawleys;" and where any one was told to vanish
or go away, I substituted "hook it," or "walk
your chalks." When I had made these and
similar alterations, my friend declared that the
dialogue was much funnier; though he thought
it might be still further improved by a little
peppering here and there. By peppering I
understood him to mean the insertion of puns,
and I flattered myself that I had introduced a
good many very excellent puns already. "Ah!
my dear fellow," said my friend and counsellor,
"that's where you make the mistake. Your
puns are too good. It's the bad ones that tell.
Here, for example, you have

"'Jack. Mother, a great long ogre's at the
door.

"'Mother Hub. A great long ogre, say you?
That's a bore.'

"That's not bad, certainly; but it is too
tame for the highly educated taste of the
present day. Put it in this way, for example:

"'Mother Hub. You must be wrong.

"'Jack. No; 'twas a great long ogre.

"'Mother Hub. Oh, g'long.'"

"Excuse me," I said, "but I don't quite see
the—"

"Not see it! Long ogre—oh, g'long. The
sound, according to the pronunciation, is
precisely the same."

"Yes, but the sense?" I said.

"Sense! If you stick at sense you will never
succeed in this branch of literature."

Acting upon this friendly advice, I set to
work to pepper my production with puns after
the approved model. I am bound to confess
that it was hard work, and I soon began to
perceive that it was absolutely necessary in
many instances—indeed in most—to change the
natural subject of the dialogue entirely, in order
to introduce them. For instance, finding tlie
word "opportunity" in a speech, and endeavouring
to pun upon it, I arrived at "hop-or-two-nity,"
and "hopera-tune-ity." Now, as neither
the act of hopping, nor the subject of opera tunes,
properly belonged to the theme, I was obliged
to drag them in neck and heels. I am quite
willing to confess that the tragedy never gave
me half so much trouble. There I was, all day
long, hunting through Johnson's Dictionary for
words to pun upon; and, oftener than not, when I
had twisted them about, and turned them upside
down and inside out upon slips of paper, no pun
would come of it, and I had to take another
word and repeat the same process. Possibly
you are not aware what it is to go to bed and
dream of puns, and beat the devil's tattoo on the
counterpane in the effort to produce couplets.

The manager called several times to see how
I was getting on. I read the scenes to him,
and he was pleased to say they would "do." He
did not bestow any higher praise; candidly
confessing that he made it a point never to praise a
piece until he saw how it went with the audience,
and what the newspapers said of it. Even
then, he was not disposed to be extravagantly
eulogistic, unless he found full warranty for so
being, in the treasury.

At the appointed time I proceeded to the
theatre to read the piece to the company. I
had long looked forward to that bright day; but,
now that it had come, it was not so bright as my
fervid fancy had painted it. I had pictured
myself in a pillared and curtained apartment
reading to lofty-mannered tragedians assembled
in solemn conclave. I found myself in a little
dark mouldy room, in the midst of a throng of
low comedians, and singing chambermaids, and
acrobats, and ballet-dancers, who paid me no
respect whatever, but regarded me with marked
suspicion and distrust. I read the piece amid
dead silence. No one condescended to laugh
but the leader of the orchestra; and the low
comedian told me immediately afterwards that
that was a very bad omen, for it was proverbial
in theatres that when the orchestra gave a                                                          prejudgment of approval, the piece was almost
certain to be damned. The grave and solemn
looks with which all the actors slunk out of the
room after the reading, made me very uneasy,
until the prompter assured me that they always
did that, and made it a rule never to express
their opinion of a piece until the parts were
given out. The only encouraging face that I had
noticed among the company, belonged, as I found,
to the pantaloon, who, on my timidly asking
him what he thought of my production, said:

"Oh, it will do very well, I dare say; but you
see the people at this house don't listen much
to the opening: they're always impatient for
the comic business."

The "comic business," I was given to understand,
meant the harlequinade, as distinguished
from the introductory dialogue, which was not
regarded (from a professional point of view) as
comic. On one point my friend the pantaloon
expressed a very decided opinion: The piece was
too long.

"The people here, you see, sir, usually whistle
through the opening. When they get tired of
whistling, they shy ginger-beer bottles, and pull
up the seats. Take my advice, sir, and cut it."

When the parts had been given out, and the
actors had assembled on the stage for rehearsal,
I found that the young lady who played Jack,
and the low comedian who played the Giant (on
stilts), and the second old man who played
Mother Hubbard (in petticoats), differed from
the pantaloon in toto. The young lady came up
to me, and, in an imperative manner said, her
part must be "written up," or she would
certainly not play it. She was such a pretty and
engaging little lady, that I said I would do
anything to oblige her; but, when I spoke to the
manager about it, he said she must play the
part or leave the theatre; and when I told this
to the little lady, she said I was a nasty
disagreeable man, and that I might have written up
her part without saying a word to the manager.

The leading low comedian, whom I felt proud
to meet and know, assumed a hostile attitude
towards me at once. On being introduced, he
was willing to shake hands with me, and hope I
was quite well; but he clearly gave me to understand
that amenities could go no further while