of the spectators. "Treat you cruelly!" said
Steadfast, incoherently in the wings. "Nothing of the sort. You quite
confounded me with your correctness. You told me you didn't know your
words, and I'll be hanged if you were not 'letter perfect.' It went
off capitally, my dear boy, so now let's go over our next scene." But
the manager deemed it advisable to omit from the play all further
reference to Moreland and Steadfast.

To performers who gag either wantonly, or by reason of imperfect
recollection of their parts, few things are more distressing than a
knowledge that someone among the audience is in possession of a book
of the play to be represented. Even the conscientious and
thoroughly-prepared actor is apt to be disconcerted when he hears the
flutter of leaves being turned over in the theatre, and discovers that
his speeches are being followed, line for line and word for word, by
critics armed with the author's text. On such occasions his memory is
much inclined to play him false, and a sudden nervousness will often
mar his best efforts. But, to the gagging player, a sense that his
sins and failings are in this way liable to strict note and discovery,
is grievously depressing. Some years ago a strolling company visited
Andover, and courageously undertook to represent an admired comedy,
with which they could boast but the very faintest acquaintance.
Scarcely an actor, indeed, knew a syllable of his part. It was agreed
that gag must be the order of the night, and that the performance must
be "got through" anyhow. But the manager, eyeing and counting his
house through the usual peephole in the curtain, perceived a gentleman
in the boxes holding in his hands a printed copy of the play. The
alarm of the company became extreme. A panic afflicted them, and their
powers of gag were paralysed. They refused to confront the
foot-lights. The audience grew impatient; the fiddlers were weary of
repeating their tunes. Still the curtain did not rise. At length the
manager presented himself with a doleful apologetic face. "Owing to an
unfortunate accident," he said, "the company had left behind them the
prompt-book of the play. The performance they had announced could not,
therefore, be presented; unless," and here the speech was especially
pointed to the gentleman in the boxes, "anyone among the audience, by
a happy chance, happened to have brought to the theatre a copy of the
comedy." The gentleman rose and said his book was much