The star bowed with dignity and retired, and the "first player" began his explanation to the audience amidst a storm of hisses.
"Gen'elmen an' lad'es,—I mean lad'es an' gen'elmen," the gallant soul corrected himself,—"want ter make a little speege,—I forgot lines—(hic) prompter throws me the word,—but (hic) he's got no teeth, for I can't make him out,—go look at book,—boss is a-callin' me now,—make it all right,—(hic)—be back d'rec'ly."
The bell jangled eloquently for the curtain to fall.
"Let it down on him,—don't care if it kills him!" was heard in the frantic managerial tones from the wings.
The characteristically good-natured American audience burst into roars of laughter, and the curtain came down amidst a storm of sarcastic applause before, and not upon, the gravely bowing "first player."
The great star was with some difficulty beguiled into going on with the play. The uproarious audience was quieted—nay, melted—by the sight of the managerial distress and the terms of the heart-broken apology which was offered. The curtain was rung up; the performance recommenced at the entrance of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern; and these preliminaries arranged, the stage manager, the manager of the theatre, his friend of the skeleton-like contour, the leader of the orchestra, a number of the minor members of the company, and a strong detachment of self-constituted "bosses" went in a different spirit to reckon with the author of all this woe.
Why nobody "nabbed" Ned was always a mystery to him afterward. Forgetting himself at the crisis he sprang boldly out of his chair and participated in the varied excitements ensuing behind the scenes as freely as if he owned the theatre. Perhaps he might not have been so eager to hear and see had he divined the influence that this incident would exert on his immediate future. He followed the "management" and the crowd of "supes," scene-shifters, call-boys, and "dead-heads" to the door of the dressing-room where the unlucky "first player" was to be called to account.
This personage had divested himself of his stage toggery and stood there in his every-day clothes, a coarse, slouching, red-faced man in a brownish suit and a checked shirt. Within the room another actor was hastily arraying himself in the gaudy attire which the "first player" had been accustomed to wear as the "Player King." The substitute was almost pathetic in his anxiety as he dressed himself, nervously repeating aloud the "lines" and giving not an instant's notice to the crowd of bystanders about the open door nor to the interview between the management and the "first player."
This was sufficiently stormy. The unfortunate "first player" got his walking-papers in no measured terms. Mr. Gorham took occasion to interject some very severe remarks, although the affair was really none of his business, the grievance lying between the manager of the company and the actor.
"It's none of your funeral, anyhow," cried the goaded "first player" indignantly.