If you have never heard a maudlin, mess-table story, told over the sixth bottle, you have at the least, read one.
Editor's Drawer.
The readers of the "Drawer" will be amused with a forcible picture, which we find in our collection, of the ups-and-downs of a strolling player's life. One would think such things enough to deter young men and women from entering upon so thorny a profession. "In one of the writer's professional excursions," runs our extract, "his manager finds himself in a woeful predicament. His pieces will not 'draw' in the quiet New England village where he had temporarily 'set up shop;' he and his company are literally starving; the men moodily pacing the stage; the women, who had kept up their spirits to the last, sitting silent and sorrowful; and the children, little sufferers! actually crying for food.
"I saw all this," says the manager, "and I began to feel very suicidal. It was night, and I looked about for a rope. At length I spied just what I wanted. A rope dangled at the prompt-side, and near a steep flight of stairs which led to a dressing room. 'That's it!' said I, with gloomy satisfaction: 'I'll mount those stairs, noose myself, and drop quietly off in the night; but first let me see whether it is firmly fastened or no.'
"I accordingly approached, gave a pull at the rope, when 'whish! whish!' I found I had set the rain a-going. And now a thought struck me. I leaped, danced, and shouted madly for joy.
"'Where did you get your liquor from?' shouted the 'walking-gentleman' of the company.
"'He's gone mad!' said Mrs. ——, principal lady-actress of the corps. 'Poor fellow!—hunger has made him a maniac. Heaven shield us from a like fate!'
"'Hunger!' shouted I, 'we shall be hungry no more! Here's food from above (which was literally true), manna in the wilderness, and all that sort of thing. We'll feed on rain; we'll feed on rain!'
"I seized a hatchet, and mounting by a ladder, soon brought the rain-box tumbling to the ground.