MATHEWS'S IRRITABILITY. 55 found that one of the audience (a well-known and influential merchant, advanced in years) had gone off into laughing hysterics. He was carried home, and laid upon the floor in one of his parlors in a terrible state of spasmodic laughter, totally unable to control himself. His physician, Dr. C, was sent for, and speedily came. Upon seeing his patient he exclaimed, in his usually brusque manner, "You infernal old jackass! what are you braying about in this obstreperous manner?" Whereupon the patient, rolling over on the floor, cried out between the paroxysms, "Oh, take him away! take him away! or I shall die with laughing!" Shakespeare says, "One fire burns out another's burning," etc. The story was soon told, at which the doctor set to laughing in a most boisterous manner, causing a revulsion in the state of the patient, who thereupon fell to crying, and in good time was put to bed, while the doctor sought an early opportunity of getting even with the laughterloving player who had taken him off, and nearly done for his patient by taking him off too. One morning, in company with Mr. Mathews, I was rehearsing a farce of his in which there are only two characters. He was suffering from rheumatism, and not at all in an amiable mood. The smoke from the burning of some greasy matter found its way to the stage, at which Mr. Mathews cried out petulantly, "Oh dear! oh dear! what's that? Now that's unbearable! Such a stench! Where can it come from? Poh! 56 MATHEWS'S "EVENINGS AT HOME." poh!" I told him the stage-carpenter lived in the back part of the theatre, and I supposed the odor came from the kitchen. "Ah, ah, that's it! that's it-'beefsteak done brown.' You Americans don't know how to cook; you burn everything up. You know the old story: 'Heaven sends meat— the devil sends cooks.' Hey? hey?" I laughed, and we went on rehearsing. However, I had the better part of the laugh—“in my sleeve," as the saying is for I knew the property-man was burning his lamp-rags under the stage (we had no gas then, but used fish oil), and the smell that had offended our olfactories was something widely different from the cooking of a beefsteak. Considering the Englishman's proverbially "rare taste," this did no credit to his sense of smell. Mr. Charles Mathews, Jr., in speaking of nervousness, told me he considered his father a perfect martyr to his profession. "For," said he, "his anxiety to have things 'just right,' to hit the exact effect so squarely as to leave nothing to be questioned, grew, with his advancing years, to be little less than a disease. He would spend day after day and week after week rehearsing 'the business' of a new entertainment, and when the night came no novice ever suffered more fearful anxiety at a first appearance than did this veteran of a 'thousand engagements.' At the opening of one of his 'Evenings,' called 'At Home,'" said my informant, "while I was in front noticing the 'effects,' I observed an old-fashioned, comfortable kind of man, with his wife and daughter, who A SLEEPY "OLD MUFF.” 57 occupied a conspicuous place, having his silk handkerchief flattened like a pancake on his bald head. Very soon his eyes closed and he settled himself back in the seat for a snooze. 'Now,' said I to myself, 'if father observes this napping chap, there will be Old Scratch to pay;' and, sure enough, he did find out the delinquent, and thereupon began to talk at the man, and to fidget, fuss, and splutter to such an extent that I thought he would certainly 'get out in his words.' However," continued Mr. Mathews, "he got through the first part, and I went 'behind' to see how he was getting along; but, oh dear! such a state of irritability as I found him in I cannot describe. He burst out with, 'Did you ever see such an exhibition?'-'Why, it was a perfect success,' I replied. No, no, no!' said my father. 'Charles! ་ Charles! I tell you he will be the death of me, that old muff with his handkerchief slipping over his eyes and his head nid-nodding like a plaster image on a mantel. Oh, it's dreadful! I can't go on, Charles, unless you stop him, turn him out, or abolish him. He'll destroy me! he'll destroy everything!' I therefore went in front, and found an opportunity to get at the old gentleman before the curtain rose again, and told him he would oblige me if he would not go to sleep. At which he began in the most pathetic manner to express his regrets, saying, in a way which attracted the attention of the audience, 'Why, is it possible that I annoyed my dear old friend Mr. Mathews? Why, I am sorry indeed; I can never forgive my 58 A LAUGHING HYENA. self for such a thing. To be sure I will keep awake. I really am ashamed that I should be guilty of falling asleep while my old friend was being so funny. Never fear, sir; I'll keep awake, sir!' 'All things being ready, the curtain rose for the second part, 'and all went merry as a marriagebell.' But oh, terrible to relate, the old muff, now fully aroused to the necessity of keeping awake, and, I have no doubt, alive to the fun which was shaking the sides of the audience, began to laugh until he at length made himself 'the observed of all observers.' You must see, of course, that this threw things out of the frying-pan into the fire,' as the old saying has it. For father, more disgusted now than ever, began to show unmistakable signs of a disturbing element in his acting which threatened an explosion; and not until the curtain fell was I free from the apprehension that he would (unable to bear the infliction) cry out, 'I'll give five pounds to anybody who will choke that laughing hyena or carry him out!' However, the performance came to an end without such a disaster taking place, while father's goodnature, after the excitement had passed off, found real enjoyment and a hearty laugh at the sleepy 'old muff,' with the red bandanna handkerchief for a wig, whose nid-nodding had nearly turned the tables on the comedian, by causing him to choke with anger when he was striving to convulse others with merriment, and who had afterward set the audience in a roar by out-laughing the laughers." CHAPTER III. THE PLAYERS OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. HE following lines from Churchill's Rosciad THE so aptly illustrate the subject of my remarks that I am induced to think the reader may not find them so familiar as to think their introduction out of place: By turns transform'd into all kinds of shapes, Constant to none, Foote laughs, cries, struts, and scrapes; The Proteus shifts-bawd, parson, auctioneer. Strange to relate, but wonderfully true, The first a mere, mere mimic's mimic stood; The last, by Nature form'd to please, who shows |