Just then a portion of the scenery caught fire somehow, but some of us behind managed to extinguish it before much damage was done.
Juliet, with commendable presence of mind, did not move an eyelid, but the corpse of Paris was plainly nervous.
He raised himself to a sitting posture, gazing up at the fire in alarm, then scrambled to his feet and scuttled off the stage, the liveliest dead man you ever saw.
The danger being removed, his courage returned, and the audience shrieked with laughter at the spectacle of a corpse crawling along from the wings bent upon taking up his proper position for the final curtain.
I was around with the editor of the New York "Flapdoodle" yesterday, working up a sensational item about myself, when I heard a crash in the composing room. The editor and I dashed upstairs and found that a nervous printer had dropped the form of the first page and pied the whole business. The editor looked grimly at the wretch, and then remarked, mournfully:
"I wish you had broken the news more gently."
Now, we've got our quick-change artists on the stage, but to tell you the honest truth, I believe they can't hold a candle to some in private life.
There's Mrs. Stubb, for instance. You know her husband likes an occasional quiet game with the boys—the trouble is he is too confiding.