"No matter," said the young lady who had played the cat, with a wicked smile of intelligence. "Prompter, ring the curtain up. All you've got to do, Mr. Blinks, is to walk across the stage."
"But where's my dress?"
"What you have on. Appear in your own character."
The curtain went up, and Blinks stalked across with his accustomed air of intolerable stupidity. Amidst smothered laughter, the audience guessed the second syllable of the charade—ass.
The curtain went up for the third time. A group of Indian chiefs were located in a wigwam. A young brave entered, distinguished by the eagle plume and wampum belt, the bow and hatchet, and threw down at the feet of the eldest warrior a bundle of the scalps he had brought back from battle. A hum of approbation rose from the assembly. The curtain fell. The word trophy had been thus indicated. The whole word was then represented by an appropriate scene from the close of a popular tragedy, and the spectators, cheering the performance, called out catastrophe to the actors.
"Well, they made out to guess it," said Blinks, when the curtain had fallen, for the last time. "But now it's all over, you made one confounded blunder."
"What was that?" asked the wicked young lady.
"You didn't act the second syllable."
"No?"
"No! indeed!" said Blinks, with a look of intense cunning. "You had cat and trophy—but where was the ass?"