"What do you think, you idiot! I exercise absolute power over my audiences—I cast over them an irresistible spell—I do with them what I will.... I am omnipotent, enthralling—and no wonder!"
I looked at her across the table, wondering at so much simple modesty.
"But feeling your power, you must often be tempted to experiment with it," I ventured.
"Yes, now and then I am," replied Miss Terry. "Once, I remember, when I was to appear as Ophelia, on making my entrance and seeing the audience waiting breathlessly—as they always do—for what I was going to do next, I said to myself, 'You silly fools, you shall have a treat to-night—I will give you something you will appreciate more than Shakespeare!' Hastily slipping on a
FALSE NOSE
which I always carry in my pocket, I struck an attitude, and then turned
A SOMERSAULT.
"Ah! the applause, the delirious, intoxicating applause! That night I felt my power, that night I knew that I had wished I could have held them indefinitely! But I am only one of several gifted beings on the stage who are blessed with this mysterious quality. Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell, and Little Tich all have it. Dan Leno, in particular, rivets the attention of his audience by his entrancing by-play, even when he doesn't speak. And yet it is
NOT HIS BEAUTY
precisely that does it."