Shealey was De Mauprat and looked well in a black velvet suit. Ambrose Bracebridge had a decidedly comical appearance in a Capuchin's brown habit and cord, with fleshlings and sandals, as the monk, Joseph. Ernest Winters, who this year had been promoted to the large yard, was to impersonate Richelieu's page, François, and certainly his brother Claude would have been proud of him could he have seen at this moment how fine he looked in his handsome doublet and trunks.
The play had been slightly modified to allow of its presentation by college students. The Julie de Mortemar had been for this occasion metamorphosed in Julius de Mortemar, and was consequently nephew instead of niece of the great cardinal. The adaptation of the lines had been cleverly done, so the transposition of this character did not greatly injure the play.
Behind the curtain the actors could hear faintly the squeakings and tunings of the orchestra violins. Presently the first overture began, and the actors knew their time had come. The manager, with a commendable horror of delays and stage waits, and knowing that anything of that kind would ruin the
very best production, had everything arranged for the opening scene when the music ceased.
The manager's little bell rings once, twice, and up rises the curtain on the drinking scene in Marion de Lorme's house. The great play of the year had begun. Is it not strange that so many really good plays open with a drinking or carousing scene? At best, there is nothing elevating in them, and it takes the finest kind of professionalism to make them even tolerable. The St. Cuthbert's college boys were not professionals. The consequence was that the first scene went but slowly.
It was not until Henning, magnificently costumed as Richelieu, entered, in the second scene, that any of the players appeared at their ease. The round of applause which greeted his entrance with Joseph seemed to steady the actors and give them confidence.
There now occurred a strange thing during this scene, which led to much talk and fruitless speculation for many subsequent days. Henning made a good entrance. He began his lines in a rich baritone:
Richelieu—"And so you think this new conspiracy
The craftiest trap yet laid for the old fox?—
Fox!—Well, I like the nickname! What did Plutarch
Say of the Greek Lysander?”
Joseph—"I forget.”
Richelieu—"That where the lion's skin fell short he eked it
Out with the fox's. A great statesman, Joseph,
That same Lysander.”