Overdale had been profuse in his explanations of the many curious scenes, and Wagstaff had noted down his words carefully in his memorandum-book. Once when the Ghost tripped and fell through the scenery, caving in the side of a brick house, and kicking his spiritual heels through the belfry of a church in the background, Overdale said that this was Ophelia, who had been taken suddenly crazy, and in her frenzy had imagined it necessary to hasten to the nearest grocery for a bar of soap to saw her leg off with. Polonius, he explained, was Horatio, and Hamlet was a little boy who run on errands for the cook of the palace, by which culinary appellation he designated the Queen of Denmark. He said the plot of the piece was, that the king wanted to marry the cook, but her relatives objected to the alliance, because his majesty hadn't got shirts enough for a change.
All of which was carefully written down by Wagstaff, with divers alterations, emendations, additions, and extemporaneous illustrations, by John Spout.
This last-named individual asserts to the present time that he cannot tell who were the most humbugged—the people who paid their money, and laughed at the play under the impression that it was a farce, or the unfortunates who performed the play, laboring under the hallucination that they were acting tragedy.
All were, however, satisfied, that it was a kink of the Elephant's tail, which he has not yet uncurled in any city of America—save Gotham.
"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle"——