'But you didn't tell your mother this, Chris?'
'No; mother did not need telling. She knew my meaning well enough. Words are not required between us now, Josey, to make us understand one another.'
'And so, and so, and so,' said Josey, with tender gaiety, when I had concluded, 'everything having been made right, they lived happily together for ever afterwards.'
It was with sadness I remembered that those were the very words which Jessie had spoken to me in the little parlour in which Josey and I were now conversing.
'Now I'm a witch,' cried Josey, 'and I'll give you three wishes. What are they?'
I looked at her reproachfully, but she did not heed me. She hobbled about as witches are in the habit of doing on the stage, and waved the poker over my head, and conducted herself generally in a ridiculous manner.
'Halo!' cried Turk, poking his head in at the door. 'What are you about with your pokers? What a pity I didn't come in a minute later! There's an account I could have written for the papers! "The first thing that met Our Correspondent's view was the distended"--distended is good, Chris, my boy; I've seen it used so--"was the distended form of the unfortunate victim on the ground, winking his last gasp. Over him stood the infuriated figure of a woman, who, with glistening eyes and rage in her countenance, was brandishing the murderous weapon--an enormous crowbar, weighing fifty-three pounds--preparatory to giving a last fell stroke to the prostrate form at her feet." That's the style, Chris; a penny a line. Spin it out--must have at least two columns. "Upon inquiry among the neighbours, who stood in clusters about the building in which the murderous deed was perpetrated, Our Correspondent learned that jealousy was the cause of the fatal assault. It appears that thirteen years ago there lived in a certain street, called et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." Now, after that, Chris, if you start an illustrated paper, and don't employ me as Special Correspondent, I shall have a bad opinion of your judgment.'
I was relieved by this diversion, and upon Turk proposing that we should pay a visit to the Royal Columbia Theatre, in which he had played the first villain for so long a time, I gladly assented.
I left a message for my mother, desiring her to wait with Josey until I returned, and Turk and I strolled to the theatre. I found not the slightest alteration either in the theatre, the audience, or the performance; they were all the same--the same atmosphere, the same fashions, the same pieces with different names. The very dresses were the same; but I was bound to confess that the First Villain was vastly inferior to Turk, who, I learned, had left a reputation behind him which would last while the walls held together. We did not stay longer than an hour, and then, as we had done on the occasion of my first visit to the Royal Columbia, we visited a neighbouring bar, and over our pewter pots listened and took part in a precisely similar conversation to that which I had listened to with such respectful admiration and attention after the performance of the thrilling drama of The Knight of the Sable Plume. The decadence of the drama, the low ebb of dramatic literature, the glorious days of Garrick and Kemble, the inferior parts which men and women of genius were compelled to play upon the mimic stage, the false positions which pretenders were puffed into by venal critics who ignored real talent--these were the themes touched upon; and I began to reflect whether this state of things was chronic in the profession, and whether, when the golden age of the drama is in its full meridian, the decadence of the drama will not be spoken of as mournfully as it is in the present day.
My mother was waiting for me when I returned; but although she was exceptionally bright and happy, and although there was a tenderly joyous significance in her words and manner towards me, she said nothing of the result of her visit to Jessie.