“That will be unnecessary, as I have it with me. This, Sir, is my baggage.”
While Boydell spoke, he put his hand back into his coat-tail pocket and quietly drew out a scratch wig. I looked at his face to find something which might belie the dignified voice, but there was not even the shadow of a smile breaking up its gravity. His countenance was as composed when he returned the wig to his pocket as though he had just shown to my admiring gaze a complete wardrobe of great magnificence. Indeed, I was so impressed by his aristocratic manner, that the ludicrous aspect of the interview hardly presented itself to me until it was over.
But I had no time to be amused, and, with the annoying trials that would turn up where I least expected them, no inclination. When I sent round for the luggage I found that two of the boys had “shoved up their trunks at their uncle’s,” and, as it was the last moment, I was compelled to redeem them. Then I hired a carriage, and went to conduct the soubrette, to the depot. When I arrived in front of the house, Madame, la mere, came out and informed me that her daughter could not go, would not go, unless I gave them fifteen dollars to get her front teeth away from the dentist’s! What could we do without a soubrette? With a groan I handed over the fifteen dollars.
Playing in the smaller towns along our route, we cleared our traveling expenses, and got into pretty good working order.
When we arrived at St. Joseph we gathered up all our strength, and came out in full glory as “The New York Star Company.” There we played for three weeks to crowded audiences. On “salary days” the money was forthcoming, a rare occurrence with strolling actors, and of course we were all greatly delighted.
Under such circumstances our spirits ran high, and each one began to tell of the particular rôles in which he or she had, in days gone by, electrified an audience and won applause. Boydell caught the infection. It happened that we had been running plays in which the “first old man” was, at best, only a “stick” part, and Boydell fretted considerably at his ill-luck. One night he came into the green-room, and to his inexpressible joy found himself cast for the part of “Colonel Damas” in Bulwer’s comedy of the “Lady of Lyons.” Now this was his pet rôle, and at the intelligence he felt all his dramatic genius kindle into a fresh flame.
“Boys,” he said, straightening up his dignified form, “Boys, you will see me make a great hit to-night. The passage commencing, ‘The man who sets his heart upon a woman is a chameleon, and doth feed on air,’ has never been to my mind rightly given.”
Many of us had seen him do pretty well before, but now we looked forward to such an effort as the stage in St. Joseph had never witnessed.
The next evening I repaired to the theater half an hour earlier than usual, but found Boydell already dressed for the play. His shabby black coat looked more eminently respectable than ever, and was buttoned over smooth white linen, or what he made answer the purpose of linen,—half a yard of paper muslin folded into tucks, and pinned to his paper collar. In his hand ready for use he held his one valuable—the scratch wig. It still lacked a few minutes before he would be called, and he disappeared, as he said, to “steady his nerves.” Various winks and knowing looks passed among the boys; such disappearances on his part at this time of the evening were by no means rare or unaccountable.
Boydell came back and went directly on the stage. The excitement behind the scenes grew, for, although few of us would admit it, we all knew Boydell was a born actor, and we clustered eagerly around the wings in breathless expectation.