“Why,” observed the author, “if it could be measured, perhaps——”
“If it could! Sir,” and Mr Tinfoil, when at all excited, trolled the monosyllable with peculiar energy—“Sir, I wouldn’t give a straw for a dramatist who couldn’t measure the cholera-morbus.”
“Much may be done for an actor by measuring,” remarked the dramatist, gradually falling into the opinion of his employer.
“Everything, Sir! Good God! what might I not have been had I condescended to be measured? Human nature, Sir—the divine and glorious characteristic of our common being, Sir—that is the thing, Sir—by heavens! Sir, when I think of that great creature, Shakespeare, Sir, and think that he never measured actors—no, Sir——”
“No, Sir,” acquiesced the dramatist.
“Notwithstanding, Sir, we live in other times, Sir, and you must write a part for the pig, Sir.”
“Very well, Sir; if he must be measured, Sir, he must,” said the author.
“It is a melancholy thing to be obliged to succumb to the folly of the day,” remarked Mr Tinfoil, “and yet, Sir, I could name certain people, Sir, who, by heavens! Sir, would not have a part to their backs, Sir, if they had not been measured for it, Sir. Let me see: it is not three o’clock—well, some time to-night you’ll let me have the piece for the pig, Sir.”
Now whether the writer addressed was by his “so potent art” enabled to measure a pig—to write a perfect swinish drama in a few hours—or whether, knowing the Buonapartean self-will of the manager, the dramatist thought it wise to make no remonstrance, we cannot truly discover: certain it is, with no objection made, he took his leave.
“An extraordinary young man, Sir—I have brought him out, Sir—a wonderful young man, Sir,” observed Mr Tinfoil to a friend and neighbour, a dealer in marine-stores. “Only wants working, Sir—requires nothing but being kept at it, Sir.”