The voice now approaches the door, and is taken up by the same tone, but produced as in the first voice.
* * * * *
I have room to add only a few polyphonic imitations. To imitate the tormenting bee, the student must use considerable pressure on his chest, as if he was about to groan suddenly, but instead of which, the sound must be confined and prolonged in the throat: the greater the pressure, the higher will be the faint note produced, and which will perfectly resemble the buzzing of the bee or wasp. Now, to imitate the buzzing of a bluebottle fly, it will be necessary for the sound to be made with the lips instead of the throat; this is done by closing the lips very tight, except at one corner, where a small aperture is left; fill that cheek full of wind, but not the other, then slowly blow or force the wind contained in the cheek out of the aperture: if this is done properly, it will cause a sound exactly like the buzzing of a bluebottle fly.
The noise caused by planing and sawing wood can also be imitated without much difficulty, and it causes a great deal of amusement. The student must, however, bear in mind that every action must be imitated as well as the noise, for the eye assists to delude the ear. We have even seen ventriloquists carry this eye deception so far as to have a few shavings to scatter as they proceed, and a piece of wood to fall when the sawing is ended. To imitate planing, the student must stand at a table a little distance from the audience, and appear to take hold of a plane and push it forward: the sound as of a plane is made as though you were dwelling on the last part of the word hush—dwell upon the sh a little, as tsh, and then clip it short by causing the tongue to close with the palate, then over again. Letters will not convey the peculiar sound of sawing—it must be studied from nature.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"ON THE ROAD."
Theatrical life is full enough of business and bustle, even when a company is playing a long engagement in a large city; but when "on the road," travelling from town to town—playing here a week and there a week, with one-night stands in the intervening "villages," actors and managers find it no easy task to retain their health and spirits, and keep up with their "dates;" and with all but a few organizations located almost permanently in New York, thus flitting from place to place—a round of anxiety and railroad experiences that lasts through forty weeks of each year—makes up the easy, glorious, and blissful existence that so many people outside of the profession imagine is the unalloyed portion of those who are in it.
As much of the business of a company's season as can be arranged in New York during the summer, is attended to by the manager. He meets the prominent theatrical managers of the country on "The Square" and makes dates at their respective houses for his attraction. Having located his route as to the large cities he proceeds to fill in the intervals with one or two-night stands in smaller places, and this being done he and his company are ready to take the road just as soon as the season begins. The contracts for cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, and St. Louis are made and signed in New York during the summer vacation. The others are completed while the company is on the road.
Ahead of every attraction is a press agent, herald, avant-courier, or, as he began to call himself two years ago, a business manager. When he invades a town the first place he makes a rush for is the most available opera house or hall, with the proprietor of which he makes a contract like the following:—