Anecdote of Macready, the Actor.
The handwriting of Macready, the actor, was curiously illegible, and especially when writing a pass to the theatre. One day, at New Orleans, Mr. Brougham obtained one of these orders for a friend. On handing it to the latter gentleman, he asked,—
“What is this, Brougham?”
“A pass to see Macready.”
“Why, I thought it was a physician’s prescription, which it most resembles.”
“So it does,” acquiesced Mr. Brougham, again looking over the queer hieroglyphics. “Let us go to an apothecary’s and have it made up.”
Turning to the nearest druggist’s, the paper was given to the clerk, who gave it a careless glance, and proceeded to get a vial ready.
With a second look at the paper, down came a tincture bottle, and the vial was half filled. Then there was a pause.
Brougham and his friend pretended not to notice the proceedings. The clerk was evidently puzzled, and finally broke down, and rang for the proprietor, an elderly and pompous looking individual, who issued from the inner sanctum. The clerk presented the paper, the old dispenser adjusted his eye-glasses, examined the document for a few seconds, and then, with a depreciating expression,—a compound of pity and contempt for the ignorance of the subordinate,—he proceeded to fill the vial with some apocryphal fluid, and, giving it a professional “shake up,” duly corked and labelled it.
