The opening chorus, the witless dialogue of secondary personages, then an almost empty stage, old Faust alone remaining, and the entrance of Mephisto.
Some applause that came from people that had not heard the preliminary announcement, and whose demonstration was intended for Renshaw, rather disconcerted Mogley. Then, ere he had spoken a word, or his eyes had ranged over the hazy lighted theatre on the other side of the footlights, there sounded in the depths of his brain:
“My thoughts will be at the theatre with you!”
There were many vacant seats in the house. He singled out one of them on the front row and imagined she was in it. He would play to that vacant seat throughout the evening.
In all burlesques of “Faust” the rôle of Mephisto is the leading comic figure. The actor who assumes it undertakes to make people laugh.
Mogley made people laugh that night, but it was not his intentional humourous efforts that excited their hilarity. It was the man himself. They began by jeering him quietly. Then the gallery grew bold.
“Ah there, Edwin Booth!” sarcastically yelled an urchin aloft.
“Oh, what a funny little man he is!” ironically quoted another from a song in one of Mr. Hoyt's farces, alluding to Mogley's spare if elongated frame.
“He t'inks dis is a tragedy,” suggested a Bowery youth.
But Mogley tried not to heed.