Q. Employees on the stage?
A. Not many of them. It was crowded there, and I threw my boy to a man. I says: "Take this boy out," and ran out on the footlights to the audience. When I did they were in a sort of panic, as I thought, and what I said exactly I don't remember, but this was the substance—my idea was to get the curtain down and quietly stop the stampede. I yelled, "Drop the curtain and keep up your music." I didn't want a stampede, because it was the biggest audience I ever played to of women and children. I told them to be quiet and take it easy "Don't get excited"—and they started up on this second balcony on my left to run, and I says, "Sit down; it is all right; don't get excited." And they were going that way, and I said to the policeman, "Let them out quietly," and they moved then, and I says, "Let down the curtain," and I looked up and this curtain was burning—the fringe on the edge of it.
WOULD NOT COME DOWN.
Q. It was caught, was it?
A. It did not come down.
Q. How near to the bottom of the stage was it?
A. Three feet above my head. I would have been outside if the curtain had come down.
Q. It was lowered down after you hallooed?
A. I hallooed for it to come down.
Q. And it came down that far and then caught?