he smaller fry of the company, together with the more pushing of
the chorus, supported each in turn, when the others were not looking. Up
to the dress rehearsal it was anybody's opera.

About one thing, and about one thing, only, had the principals fallen
into perfect agreement, and that was that the fishy-eyed young gentleman
was out of place in a romantic opera. The tenor would be making
impassioned love to the leading lady. Perception would come to both of
them that, though they might be occupying geographically the centre of
the stage, dramatically they were not. Without a shred of evidence,
yet with perfect justice, they would unhesitatingly blame for this the
fishy-eyed young man.

"I wasn't doing anything," he would explain meekly. "I was only
looking." It was perfectly true; that was all he was doing.

"Then don't look," would comment the tenor.

The fishy-eyed young gentleman obediently would turn his face away from
them; and in some mysterious manner the situation would thereupon become
even yet more hopelessly ridiculous.

"My scene, I think, sir!" would thunder our chief comedian, a little
later on.

"I am only doing what I was told to do," answered the fishy-eyed young
gentleman; and nobody could say that he was not.

"Take a circus, and run him as a side-show," counselled our comedian.

"I am afraid he would never be any good as a side-show," replied Mr.
Hodgson, who was reading letters.

On the first night, passing the gallery entrance on my way to the stage
door, the sight of the huge crowd assembled there waiting gave me my
first taste of artistic joy. I was a part of what they had come to see,
to praise or to condemn, to listen to, to watch. Within the theatre
there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement, amounting almost to
hysteria. The bird-like gentleman in his glass cage was fluttering,
agitated. The hands of the stage carpenters putting the finishing
touches to the scenery were trembling, their voices passionate
with anxiety; the fox-terrier-like call-boy was pale with sense of
responsibility.

I made my way to the dressing-room--a long, low, wooden corridor,
furnished from end to end with a wide shelf that served as common
dressing-table, lighted by a dozen flaring gas-jets, wire-shielded. Here
awaited us gentlemen of the chorus the wigmaker's assistant, whose duty
it was to make us up. From one to another he ran, armed with his hare's
foot, his box of paints and his bundle of cr