Several songs were then rehearsed, during which everybody was busy. At one side of the stage the quartette was singing, Cushman was practising an end song, the orchestra was at work on an overture, three or four men were brushing up on a farce, two song-and-dance men were inventing new steps, and Charley Dockstader was reading the Clipper. It was an exceedingly lively scene, and there was noise enough to wake the dead. Vocal and instrumental music fought a pitched battle, while the dancers hammered the stage with their feet as if by way of applause. A boiler-shop is a haven of rest beside a minstrel rehearsal at this stage.
The rehearsal lasted nearly two hours without a rest, and was as utterly unlike a minstrel performance as can well be imagined. There was nothing particularly amusing in it except its oddity, and yet when it was presented with black faces and varied costumes it caused roar upon roar of the heartiest laughter, because those who saw it then had not seen how the performance was constructed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
PANTOMIME.
There are two kinds of clowns familiar to people who patronize amusements—the clown who juggles old jokes in the circus ring, and the clown whose only language is that of facial expression, and whose grins and grimaces together with his extraordinary antics and white face are more acceptable to and interpretable by childhood than the ancient and petrified humorisms of his brother laugh-maker of the sawdust circle. There is no circus clown in the world could stretch the heart-strings of an audience as far and hold them there longer than George L. Fox, the king of pantomimic merry-makers. His was a face readable as the pages of a book printed in good large type, and the wonderful swift changes that came over it were like fleecy clouds and sunshine chasing each other across a summer sky. Poor Fox, who sent a thrill of joy into the hearts of thousands of little folks and caused their rosy lips to over-bubble with silvery laughter, his was a hard, an undeserved fate—death in a madhouse, without a glint of reason to light him on his journey across the dark river. He has left no successor more worthy of his place than George H. Adams, whose talent obtained him the recognition of Adam Forepaugh, the showman, with whom he is now in partnership. Frazier and clowns of minor merit fill the rest of the places, but Adams is at the top of the heap, and may be fitly termed the Grimaldi of to-day.
GEORGE H. ADAMS IN HUMPTY DUMPTY.
It is pleasant to visit a theatre during the progress of a pantomime. The house is filled with old and young in equal proportions, or if there is any preponderence it is on the side of the little folks, who clamber up on the backs of chairs and laugh freely and sweetly as the birds in the forest sing, every time they catch sight of the chalked head of the clown and the gray tuft standing like a turret above poor old Pantaloon's wig. And the old people laugh all the heartier because the innocent young people have their hearts and mouths filled with joy. The pantomime may be "Humpty Dumpty" or "The Magic Flute" or "The Merry Miller"—call it by whatever name you will, an intense interest is taken in it, and new enjoyment is found in every performance. The tricks are the same, the mechanical effects identical with those of every other pantomime you may have seen, and even the specialty sketches that divide the acts of the dumb show seem to be of very close kindred with those of former attractions of this kind. Still everybody enjoys the fun just as many people laugh at the "chestnuts"—vulgariter, old jokes—of the man in motley attire, who tries to make the patrons of the circus feel happy.