"You would have found it pretty hard to swallow, for it was only cotton wadding," said Miss Flimbrey.
"Well now! if ever I heard the beat of that!" interjected Mrs. Jones.
"How do you like the thunder and lightning?" said Mr. Dodcomb to Mr. Jones.
"It's fine," replied Peter, "and very natural."
"I'll tell you what it is," replied Dodcomb, "the lightning is made by sprinkling a handful of powdered rosin into a ladle heated over a pan of charcoal. A man stands between the scenes and does it whenever a flash is wanted. The thunder is produced by a pair of cannon balls joined across a bar to which is fixed a long wooden handle like the tongue of a child's basket wagon, and by this the balls are pushed and hauled about the floor behind the back scene."
"Astonishing!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "But the rattling of the rain—that sounds just as if it was real."
"The rain!" answered Mr. Dodcomb. "Oh, the rain is done by a tall wooden case, something on the plan of a great hour glass, lined with tin and filled half full with small shot, which when the case is set on end, dribbles gradually down and rattles as it falls."
"Dear me," ejaculated Mrs. Jones, "what a wonderful thing is knowledge of the stage! I never shall see a thunder-gust again (at the play-house, I mean) without thinking all the time of rosin and ladles, and cannon balls with long handles, and the dribbling of shot."
"Then for snow," pursued Mr. Dodcomb, "they snip up white paper into shreds, and carry it up to the flies or beams and rafters above the stage, and scatter it down by handfuls."
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones—