"Is he not wonderful?" whispered his adoring mistress.
"Why? what?" began Thrall.
But Sybil shook her head warningly, and even while Mrs. Van Camp's eyes flashed ominously at him he understood, and exclaimed, in tones of amazed admiration: "If he is not calling Romeo, I'm a sinner!"
"'Omeo! 'Omeo!" rasped Poll, and Mrs. Van Camp, unable to restrain herself longer, clasped him to her bosom, whereupon he yelled and swore and screeched, and swallowed two buttons from the front of her gown.
"Perhaps they will kill him?" hopefully whispered Thrall.
"Not a bit of it!" laughed Sybil; "they do him good! He has bolted nearly half a string of beads for me since I've been here! Oh, is he not awful?"
Mrs. Van Camp was finally forced to put him in his cage for punishment, and to quiet him a blanket was being wrapped about the top, when suddenly, with surprising distinctness, he croaked "Dead! dead!" then "'Omeo! 'Omeo!" again. And Mrs. Van Camp, with emotion, pressed Thrall's hands and kissed Sybil, and blessed them for their long rehearsals, that were ending in instructing her dear, dear Polly! And the pair writhed in a very anguish of suppressed mirth, until Mrs. Van Camp went back to her embroidery, and their laughter in the drawing-room could be laid to the account of "acting."
Next day Sybil had been presented to the company, on the stage of the Globe. She was being announced as an amateur, and people were filled with wonder that a young girl could pass from the drawing-room directly to the stage. But her first scene was not over before some knowing smiles and glances were being exchanged, and one of the actresses was saying: "Amateur—drawing-room? Well, she is from the drawing-room, no doubt of that; but she has halted at some other theatre before reaching this one, for she is no amateur!"
"Oh, I don't know!" argued the "old woman," who was, of course, cast for the Nurse. "I find her quite novicey in the 'business' of our scenes."