"Oh, confound it, yes!" he answered, "and that's got to stand—that blow is good!"
The old, old device of attendance upon the lamp was suggested; but the hour of the day was plainly given by one of the characters as three o'clock in the afternoon.
These six are but few of the many rejected reasons for that one cross of the stage; still Mr. Daly would not permit a motiveless action, and we came to a momentary standstill. Very doubtfully, I remarked: "I suppose a smelling-bottle would not be important enough to cross the room for?"
He brightened quickly—clouded over even more quickly: "Y-e-e-s! N-o-o! at least, not if it had never appeared before. But let me see—Miss Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle in the preceding scene, and—and, yes, I'll just put in a line in your part, making you ask some one to hand it to you—that will nail attention to it, you see! Then in this scene, when you leave these people and cross the room to get your smelling-bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly natural action on your part, and will give the men their chance of explanation and warning." And at last we were free to move on to other things.
Above all was he eager to have his stage present a home-like interior. Never shall I forget my amazement when I first saw a piece of furniture occupying the very centre of the stage, while I with others were reduced to acting in any scrap of room we could "scrooge" into, as children say.
Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train while he implored her to fly with him—the poor man had to stand somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her, causing a great laugh.
One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and laughed aloud—said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted.
But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces of furniture—stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one is only woolly in the West—in the East one gets the wool all rubbed off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans."
He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if any of us had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss Morris gets off scot-free!"
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it."