Chapter 15

To give a full description of one half of the ridiculous performances indulged in by these deluded persons--to tell of the new readings which they gave, and the old readings which they didn't give--to relate how carefully they avoided the traps, and with what commendable caution they kept away from the footlights--to give an idea of the bedlamitish ingenuity they had displayed in the selection of wardrobe, how each one had put on the most inappropriate articles imaginable, and how they could not have been more incongruously attired if they had been all dressed in sheep's grey breeches and straw hats--to dilate upon the disasters which befell the said wardrobe, how the tunics caught in the wings, and the shoulder-cloaks got singed by the side-lights; how the ladies' trains were in everybody's way, and their feathers in everybody's eyes--how, in their confusion, when they painted their faces, they put the wrong colors in the wrong places, and some of them went on with white cheeks, chalked lips, and eyebrows colored a bright vermilion--how the gilt crowns got bent and battered until they looked like ancient milk-pans with the bottoms melted out--how the flannel ermine on the regal calico robes got greasy, and looked like tripe--how the wax pearls melted and the glass ones broke--how the "supes" painted their whiskers uneven, and got their wigs on wrong side before--how some of them couldn't get their armor on at all, but how one enterprising individual, having succeeded to his satisfaction, came on to deliver a message, with his sandals in his hand, his helmet on one foot, his breast-plate on the other, and his leg-pieces strapped on his shoulders--to tell how the _Ghost_ got chilly and played the last scene in an overcoat, and proved that he was a substantial Native American Ghost, by making two extemporaneous speeches, in excellent English, to the audience--to do full justice to the miscellaneous assortment of _legs_, then and there congregated, and relate how some were bow-legs, and some were shingle-legs, some were broomstick-legs, some were wiry legs, and some were shoulder-of-mutton legs--to give an accurate relation of the various expedients resorted to, to remedy the most noticeable defects in those legs, and state that some were padded on the sides, and some at the ankles, and how, in not a few instances, the padding slipped away from its original position, thereby putting the calves on the shins, and causing the knees to resemble deformed india-rubber foot-balls--and to give a reliable history of the unheard-of antics indulged in by the said fantastic legs, after their symmetry had been perfected by the means just written--how some went crooked, some sideways, and some wouldn't go at all; how some minced with short steps, like a racking pony, and others stepped along as if they had seven-league boots on; how some moved with convulsive hitches, as if they were clockwork legs, and the springs were out of order; how some worked spasmodically up and down in the same place, and didn't get along at all, as if they were legs which had struck for higher wages; and how others dashed ahead, as if they did not intend to stop until they had transported their bewildered proprietors out of sight of the audience, as if they were machine legs, with the steam turned on, and weights on the safety-valve; how some went on the stage and wouldn't go off, and how others went off and wouldn't go on, until they were coaxed on by their agonized owners, a long time after the cue came--to tell how the red fire burned green, and the blue fire would not burn at all--how the call-boy got tipsy, and was not forthcoming--how the property-man fell over the sheet-iron thunder, and stuck his head into a pot of red paint, which made him look like a modern edition of Charles the First with his head cut off--how the grave-diggers got into the grave and couldn't get out--how _Hamlet_ and _Laertes_ could hardly get in at all; and how, when they did get in, they made the gravel fly--how the wrong men came on at the wrong time, and how, as a general thing, the right men didn't ever come on--how _Guildenstern_ spoke _Ophelia's_ lines, how _Horatio_ tried to speak one of Hamlet's speeches, and danced a frantic hornpipe with rage because he couldn't think how it began, and how _Polonius_ couldn't speak at all, and so went home--how nobody could remember what Shakspeare said, and so everybody said what Shakspeare didn't say, and hadn't said, and wouldn't have said, under any circumstances--how some of the men swore, and some of the women wanted to, but postponed it, and how the butchery proceeded, with many mishaps and multitudinous mistakes, and how the audience applauded, and cheered, and laughed at the dismal tragedy, evidently considering it the liveliest farce of the season, are facts, falsehoods, and circumstances, both real and supposititious, which could not be compressed within the limits of a single volume.

Hamlet was personated by an aspiring youth, whose physical dimensions were not up to the army standard, and who couldn't have gathered fruit from a currant-bush without high-heeled boots on; while the lady who represented his mother would have been compelled to stoop in order to pick pippins from the tallest apple-tree that ever grew. By the side of her illustrious son, she looked perfectly capable of taking him up in her arms, giving him his dinner after the usual maternal fashion, and afterwards disposing of him in the trundle-bed, to complete his infant slumbers.

Overdale explained that they had tried to get a bigger _Hamlet_, but that, upon the whole, he thought the little fellow would "speak his piece" pretty well, taking into consideration the fact, that in the dying groans, he was supposed to have no superior.

Wagstaff was totally ignorant of the plot, and as from the obfuscation of the performers, no one could have formed the slightest idea of what they were all talking about, he seemed in no very fair way to find out anything about it.

The peculiar rendition of the story of the King of Denmark was so uncertain, that even John Spout found it exceedingly difficult to tell where they were or how they would come out, or what they intended to do next. He was a little uncertain whether the queen would finally subdue _Hamlet_, or _Hamlet_ succeed in thrashing the queen. In the closet scene, especially, the battle was conducted with such varying success that it was impossible to bet, with any kind of certainty, on the result, or to prognosticate, with reliability, whether _Hamlet_ would knock his mother down with a chair, and damage her maternal countenance with the heels of his boots, or whether the old lady would succeed in _her_ design, which was evidently to conquer her rebellious offspring, and give him a good spanking. Neither could he tell whether _Laertes_ would kill _Horatio_, _Hamlet_, or the _Second Grave-digger_, who stood behind the wing, with his hands in his pockets, and his breeches in his boots. He was also a little undecided as to which was _Polonius_, and which was the king, and when the player queen came on, he thought it was only _Ophelia_, with a different-colored petticoat on. John swore the _Ghost_ looked as if he hadn't had any dinner, and said he was perfectly certain his ghostship had been refreshing his invisible bowels with a mug of ale, behind the scenes, because when he came on the last time, with the broomstick in his hand, he could see the foam on his whiskers.

One of the richest and most incomprehensible scenes ever witnessed on the modern stage was the final one between _Hamlet_ and the _Ghost_, who, finding the weather chilly, had done his best to mitigate his sufferings by putting on an overcoat. _Hamlet_, trying to look fierce, holding his sword at arm's length, performing a kind of original fancy-dance, as he followed the spiritual remains of his ghostly father across the stage--_Hamlet_, the mortal, being about the size of a mutton-ham, while his father, the immortal, supposed to be exceedingly ethereal, was tall enough and stout enough for a professional coal-heaver, instead of an amateur ghost--the intangible spirit, moreover, having one hand in his overcoat pocket, to keep his fingers warm, while in the other he flourished a short broomstick, as if to keep his degenerate scion at a respectful distance, were so ludicrous, that John Spout seized Wagstaff's book, and produced the sketch to be found at the beginning of this chapter.

And in the last death-scene _Hamlet_ really won such honors as were never before accorded to mortal tragedian; being by this time a little doubtful whom to kill, he made an end of the entire company in rotation. First, he stabbed the _King_, who rolled over once or twice, and died with his legs so tangled up in the _Queen's_ train that _she_ had to expire in a hard knot; then he stabbed _Laertes_, who died cross-legged; then he stabbed _Osric_; and not content with this, he tripped up his heels and stood on his stomach, till he died in an agony of indigestion; then he tried to stick _Horatio_, but only succeeded in knocking his wig off; and then, turning up stage, made extensive preparations for terminating his own existence.

First, as everybody was dead, and everybody's legs were lying round loose, he had to lay them out of the way carefully, so as not to interfere with the comfort of the corpses; then he picked up all the swords and laid them cautiously in a corner, so that the points shouldn't stick in him when he fell; then he looked up at the curtain to see that he was clear of that, then he looked down at the traps to see that he was clear of them, and having at last arranged everything to his satisfaction, he proceeded to go systematically through his dying agonies, to the great satisfaction of the audience. Suffice it to say, that when the spasms were ended, and he had finally become a "cold corpus," his black tights were very dirty and had holes in the knees.

When the curtain went down _Hamlet_ was too exhausted to get up, and instantly everybody rushed to the rescue; those he had slaughtered but a few minutes before, forgot their mortal wounds, and hastened to the murderer with something to drink. The _King_ rushed up with a pewter mug of beer; _Horatio_ presented the brandy-bottle; the _Ghost_ handed him a glass of gin and sugar; the _Queen_ gave him the little end of a Bologna sausage and a piece of cheese; the stage carpenter, in his bewilderment, could think of nothing but the glue-pot; the property man hastened to his aid with a tin cup full of rose-pink, and a plate-full of property apple-dumplings (ingeniously but deceptively constructed out of canvas and bran), while an insane scene-shifter first deluged him with water, and then offered him the bucket to dry himself with.

John Spout, who had been behind the curtain, and witnessed this last performance, immediately came out, borrowed Wagstaff's notebook, and left therein his pictorial reminiscence of this scene as follows: Overdale had been profuse in his explanations of the many curious scenes, and Wagstaff had noted down his words carefully in his memorandum-book. Once when the _Ghost_ tripped and fell through the scenery, caving in the side of a brick house, and kicking his spiritual heels through the belfry of a church in the background, Overdale said that this was _Ophelia_, who had been taken suddenly crazy, and in her frenzy had imagined it necessary to hasten to the nearest grocery for a bar of soap to saw her leg off with. _Polonius_, he explained, was _Horatio_, and _Hamlet_ was a little boy who run on errands for the cook of the palace, by which culinary appellation he designated the Queen of Denmark. He said the plot of the piece was, that the king wanted to marry the cook, but her relatives objected to the alliance, because his majesty hadn't got shirts enough for a change.

All of which was carefully written down by Wagstaff, with divers alterations, emendations, additions, and extemporaneous illustrations, by John Spout.

This last-named individual asserts to the present time that he cannot tell who were the most humbugged--the people who paid their money, and laughed at the play under the impression that it was a farce, or the unfortunates who performed the play, laboring under the hallucination that they were acting tragedy.

All were, however, satisfied, that it was a kink of the Elephant's tail, which he has not yet uncurled in any city of America--save Gotham.

MRS. THROUGHBY DAYLIGHT'S FANCY DRESS JAM.

"Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey, Mingle, mingle"----

MR. Remington Dropper had a great respect for upper tendom; was almost inclined to admit, without question, its claims to the worship of the vulgar masses, and confessed that when he saw one whom he took to be a leader of fashion coming, he felt an involuntary movement of his right hand towards his hat. He admitted that he had, by this manner of doing indiscriminate homage to well-dressed people, on several occasions taken off his hat to notorious horse-jockeys, faro-dealers, and gamblers.

"However," said John Spout, "if you want to go to a grand fancy dress ball, where you will meet all 'the world,' as these try-to-be-fashionable people call those who have scraped together dollars enough to entitle them to their royal notice, I can very easily get you an invitation. Mrs. Throughby Daylight, whose husband made a fortune by selling patent medicine, and thereby purged himself of poverty and plebeianism together, gives, in a short time, a grand fantasquerade, which is intended to be the most consolidated fancy dress jam of the season. Do you want to go?"

"Go," replied Dropper, "how can I go? I don't know Mrs. Throughby Daylight, or Mr. Throughby Daylight, or any of the Daylights, so that Daylight is all moonshine."

"Dropper," was the response, "you're young; I excuse that, for you can't help it; but you're also _green_, which I cannot forgive; your verdancy is particularly noticeable when you revive the absolute absurdity of supposing that it is necessary to be acquainted with a lady before you are invited to attend her parties. That antiquated idea has been long since exploded. Why, my dear sir, it is no more necessary that you should have ever previously heard of a woman whose 'jam' you receive an invitation to attend, than it is probable she knows who _you_ are, or where the devil you come from."

Dropper was bewildered.

"It is a positive fact," continued Spout. "Why, bless your innocent eyes, a woman of fashion no more knows the names of the individuals who attend her grand party, than she knows who took tea last night with the man in the moon. She merely orders music and provisions, makes out a list of a few persons she _must_ have, has her rooms actually measured, allows eight inches square to a guest; thus having estimated the number that can crowd into her house, she multiplies it by two, which gives the amount of invitations to be issued, after which she leaves the rest to Brown. Brown takes the list; Brown finds the required number of guests. Brown invites whom he pleases; Brown fills the house with people, and Brown, and only Brown, knows who they are, where they came from, or how the deuce they got their invitations."

Dropper, still more bewildered, inquired who Brown was.

"Brown," explained John Spout, "is the Magnus Apollo of fashionable society--he is the sexton of Graceless Chapel, and no one can be decently married, or fashionably buried without his assistance. He has a wedding face and a funeral face, but never forgets himself and cries over the bride or laughs at the mourners; he is great as a sexton, but it is only in his character of master of ceremonies at a party, that he rises into positive sublimity--he is the consoler of aspiring unfashionables, who have got plenty of money, and want to cut a swell, but don't know how to begin. He is the furnisher of raw material on short notice, for fashionable parties of all dimensions; his genius is equal to any emergency, though, as the latest fashion is to invite three times as many people as can get into the house at any one time, Brown is often put to his trumps. Mrs. Codde Fishe last week wanted to give a party, and, of course, called on Brown. Brown measured the parlors; they would only hold 1728, even by putting the chairs down cellar, and turning the piano up endways. Mrs. Codde Fishe was in despair. Mrs. P. Nutt had received 1800 at her party the night before, and if she couldn't have 2000 she would be ruined. Brown's genius saved her. 'Mrs. F.,' said he, 'though we must invite 2000 people, and though we must have 2000 people in the house, they need not be all there at one time, and they need not all stay.'

"'Certainly not,' said Mrs. Fishe.

"'I'll manage it,' said the indefatigable Brown--and Brown did manage it. He got 272 retail drygoods clerks, whom there didn't anybody know, dressed them in white gloves and the required fixens, so they looked almost as well as men. Well, sir, if you'll believe it, Brown had his 272 clerks arrive at the door, eleven at a time, in hired hackney-coaches, announced them, by high-flown names, to the hostess, had them march in single file through the parlors to the back door, where he had a man waiting to conduct them over the garden-fence by a step-ladder, and so get them out of the way to make room for more.

"Mrs. Lassiz Candee had but 1439 names on her list; she wanted 1800. Brown was summoned. Brown heard the trouble. Brown produced from his pocket a list of names twenty-one yards in length. For a moderate compensation he furnished Mrs. Candee with a yard and a half of literary celebrities, three yards of 'Shanghaes,' five yards and a quarter of polka dancers, and about fourteen feet of foreigners, with beards and moustaches for show-pieces, and to give the thing a 'researcha' look.

"But, not to be too tiresome, Dropper, I am on Brown's list of eligibles, and can get your name added also."

Remington eagerly accepted the offer, and three days after they found on their table two huge envelopes, addressed respectively to "Mr. John Spout," and "Mr. Remington Dropper." Remington, trembling with haste, broke open his at once, and discovered a card about the size of a washboard, on which was a communication to the effect that Mrs. Throughby Daylight requested the pleasure of the company of Mr. Remington Dropper, and that it was to be a fancy dress party, and he was requested to appear in costume, all of which he only discovered by calling John Spout to his assistance, who condescendingly explained everything.

Remington was overjoyed, but in answer to all his anxious inquiries concerning the manner of procuring the invitation, he only elicited from John Spout the mysterious monosyllable, BROWN!

"What does it mean by coming 'in _costume_?' How am I to dress? What shall I put on, and where shall I get it?" inquired he.

John explained. "It means that you are to disguise yourself in an un-Christian attire of some description, making yourself look as unlike a 'human gentleman' as possible--call yourself a 'Gondolier,' a 'Brigand,' a 'Minstrel Boy,' or some other sentimental or romantic name, and cut as big a splurge in your borrowed clothes as possible. If you know anybody who belongs to the theatre, you can easily borrow a rig; if not, you'll have to hire it of a Jew, and give security that you'll bring it back."

For four days Mr. Dropper was in a state of feverish undecision respecting his choice of a character. At the end of that time he was still wavering between a "Turk," a "Monk," and "Jack Sheppard." By John Spout's suggestion he resolved to decide the matter by a throw of the dice, which method made a "Turk" of him for the eventful evening, the "Monk" getting deuce, ace, and a five, "Jack Sheppard" scoring but eleven, while his oriental highness came off victorious, by means of two fours and a six. John Spout was going as a Choctaw Indian, so that he could smoke all the time and no one would find fault and say that he was vulgar.

The wished-for evening arrived, and Remington began to dress at four in the afternoon, so as to be in time. By the assistance of two Irishmen and a black boy he got his dress on at half-past six; and at a quarter to seven he sunk exhausted into a arm-chair, and went to sleep.

John's own toilette was quickly made; he had borrowed his dress from a friend, who attended in person to put it on for him.

When they were ready, the black boy was dispatched for a hack, into which they both got; after experiencing some difficulty from Spout's war club, which got tangled in Remington's trousers, and being a good deal exasperated by Dropper's scimitar which _would_ get between John Spout's legs and interfere with his breech cloth.

At last they approximated the house, and their carriage took its place in the rear of a long line which had formed in front of Mrs. Throughby Daylight's mansion, and anxiously waited for those in front to move out of the way, and give them a chance to get out.

They could hear in the distance the shrill whistle and the voice of the indefatigable Brown, shouting "Room for Mrs. Rosewood's carriage;" "Clear the way for Mrs. Fizgiggle's vehicle;" "Let Mrs. Funk's establishment come up;" and then Brown would disappear into the house, and a faint echo of Brown would be heard from the inside, announcing these visitors as "Mrs. Noseblood," "Mrs. Buzfiggle," and "Mrs. Junk," it being a peculiarity of Brown, that although he might get the names of the guests right the first time, he never announced them at the door without some ludicrous perversion.

Our friends at length attained the entrance, and, having been interrogated by Brown as to who they were, and having told him "a Turk" and "a Choctaw," they were instantly ushered by that individual into the presence of the versicolored crowd, and announced, in a voice of thunder, as "Mr. Squirt" and "Mr. Bucksaw."

As they had come in a carriage and were prepared for immediate conquest, they had no overcoats or hats to dispose of, and were consequently ushered directly into the first of the three parlors, they held a consultation as to which was the hostess; and what the least perilous manner of getting at her, concluded that it was not necessary for a Turk or a Heathen to be so particular about the rules of Christian society, and so they dispensed with the usual entering salute.

Remington Dropper soon found that he was not the only oriental in the room; there were four other Turks, and a great many Moguls, so that he only made up the half dozen, but he consoled himself with the reflection that his turban was the biggest, and that the toes of his slippers turned up higher than any of the rest.