What does it matter to their art that Forbes Robertson loves canaries, that Edwin Booth was fond of waffles? What does it matter how Mr. Jeffries amuses himself in his leisure hours? Yet in the large and fashionable audience which assembled at the Bijou Theater there were evidently many persons who were drawn by no other motive than a curiosity to see the champion pugilist of the world.
These made their presence felt by ejaculating in Mr. Jeffries's tender yet stalwart love passages:
"Uppercut her, Jim!" Or by crying out at that supreme moment when Mr. Jeffries defied the villain:
"Soak him, kid! Soak him!"
It may be said in defense of Jersey City that not all of this was due to the blindness of her citizens toward great art. Some of it may be laid to the incompetence of the Bijou bouncer.
"Davy Crockett," which this robust and sterling young artist had chosen as the medium of introduction to the stage of New York, is a drama which has not been seen of late on the American boards. Mr. Jeffries brings to it a freshness and a style all his own.
The Heroine is Nifty.
Right here is where the gent who has being doing falsetto pulls off his wig, shows the genuine whiskers, and strikes low G on the bass clef to show that he can do it.
You see, the villain is after the bunch of calico. She's certainly nifty. The villain has staked out his nephew to be her steady company, but the minute she trims her luscious lamps on Crockett, any dub can see that he's her candy kid.
The orchestra rips off a few yards of the "Flower Song," while Jim sinks his voice down to the solar plexus and puts her wise that she's his'n and he's her'n, only it can never be.