ound
always in the capitals. I remember that we played once in a schoolroom
built of corrugated iron and without a vestige of scenery. We put on
'Chums;' and the settler's parlour, the forest scene, and the outer view
of the Otago homestead were each and all represented with the help of
a green baize cloth, which hung at the rear and on either side of the
stage, three upturned petroleum tins, three chairs, a tub, and a little
oblong deal table with red legs. We had a stage space of about four
yards by three. I played Square Jack Furlong; and in the last act my
revolver hung fire and exploded a second or two too late, when it was
unfortunately and accidentally levelled at the back of the leading man's
head. The waxen pellet which packed the powder hit him smartly on the
philoprogenitive bump, and he swore audibly.

A revolver is always a nuisance on the stage and a terror to the actor
who has to use it. You may buy the best weapon in the trade, you may
have your cartridges made with the utmost care; but there will always
be a chance of its missing fire. You may have a double in the wings, of
course, but even that provides no surety. I have known my own revolver
and the double refuse duty at the same instant, and have faced the
moaned inquiry of the leading man, who ought to have been stretched out
in apparent death throes, 'What the devil's going to happen now?' To
make matters better, when I had thrown away the useless weapon with an
improvised execration and was about to hurl myself upon the virtuous
victim, the pistol in the wings obeyed the pressure of the prompter's
finger, and the leading man dropped to a shot from nowhere, to the great
mystification of the audience.

I am really disposed to believe that the illusion of the scene is
very little helped by the most elaborate and realistic works of
scene-painter, carpenter, and upholsterer. I have seen the house drowned
in tears over that lugubrious and hollow 'East Lynne' when the stage
has been enclosed in green baize and there has not been a stick of
respectable furniture on the boards. 'East Lynne,' by the way, is one of
my puzzles. Except that it has once or twice wearied me to the point of
exasperation, it has never moved me in any way; and countless thousands
have cried over it. In the New Zealand back blocks people used to weep
like watering-carts over its tawdry pathos; and when that awful, awful
child, whose business it was to die and who would _not_ do his