n who
could accost one fluently enough at the stage door, should make such a
bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words "in
character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of
amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were of
any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of repeating two
lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner, but without the
correctness of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be
any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke, but an
unhappily earnest mode of getting bread, should so often make their
performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in
particular, a good-humoured, gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us
all; not remarkable for talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with
plenty of common sense. Well, "he would be an actor"--it was his own
fancy to have a part, and, as he was "one of us," we could not well
refuse him. We gave him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own
powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be "second
fellow"--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak;
but, from the very first time I heard him read them, I set him down as a
hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the
words; when he repeated them without the book, it was like a clergyman
giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file
of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a
natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So
we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a
promising "Mat Muggins" because he went to the "Union" two nights
successively, when he ought to have been at "The Three Pigeons." We
superseded a very respectable "landlord" (though he had actually been
measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to
business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all
necessary to conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic
song instead of Tony, (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not
having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and
come at our readings _ad libitum_, upon condition of being very careful
not to take cold.

When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it was
deemed expedient to have a "dress rehearsal"--especially for the