"Vot you mean? Dot I should sit in it so?" and the German actor plumped himself into the chair in question by approaching it so that he could sit on it in astride, in reverse position, folding his arms over the rounded back.
"No—no, not that way—not as if you were riding a horse!" cried the manager. "Throw yourself into it with abandon, as the stage directions call for."
"Let me show him," broke in the melancholy voice of Wellington Bunn.
Striding into the scene, which had been interrupted to enable this bit of rehearsal to be gone through with, the old Shakespearean actor approached the chair and cast himself into it as though he had lost his last friend, and had no hope left on earth.
"That's the way—that's the idea—copy that!" cried Mr. Pertell, enthusiastically.
But he spoke too soon.
Mr. Bunn had cast himself into the chair with such "abandon" that the chair abandoned him. It fell apart, it disintegrated, it parted company with its legs—all at once—so that chair and actor came to the ground in a heap.
"Oh, my! I am injured! A physician, I beseech you!" moaned Mr. Bunn, while others of the cast rushed to help him to his feet. He was soon pulled from the ruins of the chair.
"Ach! So. I unterstandt now!" exclaimed Mr. Switzer. "I haf your meaning now, of vat 'abandon' is, Mr. Pertell. I am to break der chair ven I sits on it, yes? Dot is 'abandon' a chair. Vot a queer lanquitch der English is, alretty. Vell, brings me annuder chair und I vill abandon it!"
Mr. Pertell threw his hands upwards in a despairing gesture.