his part remained as it was. His complaint
was, that his part was a great deal too short, and
that all the best lines were given to Jack. What
he wanted me to do, was, to write his part up,
and give him all Jack's good lines. I should
have been most willing to oblige the leading
low comedian to the full extent of my ability;
but to ask Jack to give up her pet lines was
more than I dared do. From what I had
already seen of Jack, I felt justified in the belief
that she would have met any proposition of the
kind with a hostile demonstration of physical
force. The second old man (owing, as I
subsequently understood, to the smallness of his
salary, and consequently of his importance in
the theatre) did not venture upon direct
protest, but talked at me, shrugging his shoulders,
and saying to other malcontents, loud enough
for me to hear, that he was afraid his health
would break down under so much study.

In my imagination, I had always pictured a
stage rehearsal as a very pleasant affair. Realising
it, I found that, as the author, I was regarded as an
enemy by every one who had a part in the piece;
and that I had not only made all the actors inimical
to myself, but to each other. The leading low
comedian and the leading young lady had been on
the best terms possible until I sowed the seeds of
discord between them by providing them respectively
with the parts of Jack, and the Giant.
Jack confided to me privately that, so far as the
lines were concerned, she would much rather
have been the Giant; while the Giant protested,
for the same reason, that he would have infinitely
preferred to be Jack. There was only one point
on which they were unanimous, and that was in
their hatred of me, and their envy of each other.
The discontent of these two was so unreasonable
that I could treat it with indifference; but it
cut me to the quick to be pitifully informed by
the second old man, whom I had been partly
instrumental in casting for Mother Hubbard,
that his line of business, until he had joined
that theatre, had been tragedy, and that he had
been accustomed to enact Macbeth and Coriolanus.
I had a fellow feeling for the second old
man, and could have sympathised with him, if he
had only been commonly civil. But he would
insist on altering my couplets and introducing
"gags," which I could not approve. Thus, without
any rhyme or reason whatever, he persisted
in substituting for a very neat joke, the vulgar
expression: "Hollo boys, there goes another
guy!" which he said was safe to bring the house
down. The Giant also took similar liberties, and
finished lines with, "What's your little game?"
"Who's your hatter?" "How's your poor
feet?" and other slang expressions of the
streets, which had no relation whatever to the
subject of the dialogue. I protested that I
could not allow my name to appear in
connexion with such nonsense, and begged the
Giant to speak only the words set down for him.
I had my reputation to study. The Giant retorted
that he had his reputation to study too; and he
had the audacity to say that there was not a
laugh in the whole piece, and that, unless he was
permitted to do something to "hit the people
up," it would be damned.

I had prided myself particularly upon my
happy selection of music, and the neatness of
my parodies. Judge of the outrage to my feelings,
when Jack declined to sing Come where
my Love lies Dreaming, and insisted upon Skid-a-
ma-link, with a comic dance. Jack carried her
point, and this encouraged the Giant to reject
the King of the Cannibal Islands, which was
highly appropriate, in favour of I wish I was
with Nancy, which was apropos of nothing; there
being no Nancy in the piece, and no reason for
the Giant wishing himself anywhere but where he
was. I flattered myself that there could be no
earthly objection to my effective parody of the
grand scena from Sonnambula; but the unanimous
voice of all concerned declared for the
Perfect Cure, with a jumping accompaniment.
I had been patient and forbearing hitherto;
but this was too much. I appealed against the
Perfect Cure to the manager.

"My dear sir," was the manager's reply,
"don't say a word against the Cure. It's a safe
card—always goes. We had a farce not long
ago that was on the high road to ruin. The
people began to goose it, five minutes after the
curtain was up: they goosed it all through.
What did I do? I went to the wing and
whispered to the cast to dance the Cure. They
did, and it saved the piece. The curtain fell
amid a storm of applause, and the Cure was
encored."

The manager had previously expressed himself
thus: "Lord bless you, sir, when we have played
it for a night or two you won't know it again."
This was verified before it was played at all, and
I retired from the last rehearsal in disgust, to
find the clown and pantaloon in their practising
dresses at the wing, impatiently fretting and
fuming at the long time taken over the "lingo."
This was the contemptuous epithet those
worthies applied to that opening which had cost me
days of toil, and nights of torture.

In the midst of my humiliation, I had but one
consolation. The piece would make me a
dramatic author, and, as Mr. Maberly said,
introduce me to the market. I thought with hope,
of my neglected tragedy in the drawer at home.

Boxing night came, and the curtain rose upon
Harlequin Jack the Giant Killer; or, Old Mother
Hubbard, Little Red Riding Hood, and the
Field of Fifty Footsteps. I sat in a corner of
the dress-circle with feelings of mingled shame
and dread. I felt like a criminal in the dock,
conscious of his crime, and fearfully awaiting
the verdict. In my anxiety I had no ears for
the words, and the first thing that attracted
my attention was a round of applause. I
anxiously inquired of my next neighbour what
the actor had said to excite so much enthusiasm?
His reply was, "What's your little game?" and
he said it through his laughter, as if he thought
it a very good point indeed. Another roar
succeeded, and this time I heard for myself the
joke which was so much approved. It was
Mother Hubbard's exquisite witticism of "Hollo