[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

“Thus his special nothing ever prologues.”

“——let times news be known
When 'tis brought forth.”

“Puck. Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

“When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer.”

“——————'tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes:
For who so firm that cannot be seduced?”

“The seeming truth which cunning “oft” puts on
T' entrap the wisest.”

“None are so severely caught when they are catch'd
As wit turn'd fool.”

“Wink at each other, hold the sweet jest up;
This sport well carried shall be chronicled.”

“Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As fooleries in the wise.”

“It is much that a lie, with a slight oath, and a jest with a sad brow, will
do with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders.”

Youth! how delighted dost thou revel in the full flow of
nature's bounteous stream, swelling to expected perfection!
To the present feeling of enjoyment, and to the unbounded anticipation
of future bliss, how open is youth! How full of delight
and how beauteous in infancy, although, like the early
blossom of spring, it feels the chills that its nature is heir to.
We press the elastic muscle, full and soft, of the healthful
child, and pass our fingers through the glossy curls, and fondly
pinch the rosy, dimpled cheek, and gaze in the laughing eyes,
and express with enthusiasm our admiration of the promise

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

nature gives of its future perfection—we know not what; but
we feel and know that we love youth even in its imbecility.
As it approaches to and attains maturity, how admirable, how
lovely is youth in its pristine purity!

Such is man's love of youth, and so prone is he to compare
and measure all else by himself, that, as he experiences age
and decay, and sees that generations after generations have
sprung up, bloomed, performed the acts assigned to them, sickened,
withered, and died; and the cities and kingdoms of the
earth have in like manner had their feeble beginnings, growth,
and death—their childhood, youth, maturity, splendour, decline,
and fall. When he looks to the past, and sees that his species
and all connected with it, have ever had the same unvaried
path and progress through life to extinction: that the infant, the
man, and the tomb, are but types of the building's corner-stone,
erection, existence, dilapidation, and ruins; and both
but symbols of the empire's commencement, growth, glory, intoxication,
reeling, subversion, and utter destruction: so that
he looks in vain for the traces of its existence. While he contemplates
on all this, the thought occurs, that even “the great
globe itself, and all that it inherits”—this glorious orb, forwhose
use the sun and the moon and the stars seem to have been
created—and even more, that this immeasurable universe, of
which they are a puny part, has had its childhood, its youth, its
maturity, and must have its decay and extinguishment. Thus
man measures the infinite by his own finite. But shall we
say, that all these myriads of light-darting suns, with their
countless revolving planets, the proofs of the Eternal One, his
goodness and power, are only formed to cease? May we not
think that the Eternal has impressed upon them the image of
his eternity? Even in this our planetary habitation, though
ever moving, ever changing, we can perceive no indications of
decay. Though life is ever ceasing, it is ever reviving. As
the sea recedes here, it advances there. The mountain summit
is washed to the plain and to the ocean, or sinks into the
bowels of the earth—but another mountain ascends from the
plain or from the great deep. Where the arid sand of the desert
now lies, denying sustenance or being to animal or vegetable
life, once flourished the date and the palm, and every
living thing in its full perfection—man, in his greatest pride.
And who can say, that the same power which caused its former
fertility, will not cause the mountain to start from the sands of
the desert, and pour the river from the hill upon the barren
plain; causing the fountain to spring, the herb to grow, and

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

every living thing to flourish; peopling the same region again
with life, and youth, and joy—not again and again to see disease,
decay, and death, but perfection and immortality?

Though man may not measure the power of God by his
own weakness, he may, and must, love youth, beauty, and purity;
and while such love is active in him, he must adore his
infinitely good Creator.

But while we talk of youth, we are growing old. Time flies,
and our story is yet to be told.

The incident in the life of Zebediah Spiffard, which I am
now to relate, produced consequences which could not have
been foreseen by the most quick-sighted. The actors in the
scenes, connected with this incident, were of course blind to their
results; nor could they, by any knowledge of the past, have
the most remote conception of the events which followed;
otherwise they would have refused their participation; or in
phraseology suggested by the words “actors” and “scenes,”
they would have thrown up their parts. But in this, as in many
other instances, jocund youth led on to sport, ending in repentance
and sorrow.

The train of unintended and unexpected events, materially
affecting our hero's future life, must be ascribed partly to the
discrepancy existing between Spiffard and his companions of
the theatre, (and the associates of those companions,) and partly
to the circumstances attending his various domestic ties.

The opening scene of these volumes has given the reader
some notion of the contrasted characters of the water-drinker,
and the gay young men his choice of profession had brought
him in contact with. The dinner at Cato's further introduced
these gentlemen to notice.

This discrepancy, combined and mingled with domestic circumstances,
made the winter of 1811 and '12, productive of a
succession of miseries, a complication of irritating and stinging
tortures, to the hero of our tale, such as few, with his purity of
mind and action, have been called upon to endure. The sufferings
he experienced were occasioned, in part, by faults of
commission and ommission, with which he is justly chargeable,
(as is the case with most, perhaps, all men;) and these faults
might be traced to the early incidents of his life, his defective
education, and his unguided, unrestrained modes and habits of
thinking as well as acting.

His natural good temper, and his musical as well as conversational
talents, made him a welcome guest among the gay
young friends of the manager, at the same time that his

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

artlessness tempted them strongly to amuse themselves by
what they intended as innocent tricks, and playful pranks, to
the effects of which his unsuspicious nature made him obnoxious.
These sports might have passed off harmless, and
often had done so; sometimes ending in the triumph of the man
of temperance; but the unhappy position in which he found
himself placed at this time, by his hasty matrimonial connexion,
and the effects of meeting his mother's sister, were
powerful causes in producing most untoward effects. He was
involved in perplexities, which, as we have seen, he feared to
communicate the knowledge of to that person, whose duty as
well as interest, it was, most of all others, to assist him with consolation
and counsel: the person, of all others, who, it is the
duty as well as interest of every man, to trust with his fears, his
doubts, and his perplexities—his wife. With every disposition
to frankness, he became incommunicative where most he should
have confided. We shall see the result.

While our hero's affairs were in this posture, and his naturally
imaginative and irritable mind, in this state of excitement,
he and the young gentleman we have before mentioned by the
name of Allen, met at the front door of the theatre; the latter
lounging toward the boxes, more to kill ennui, than from love
of Shakspeare; the first hastening from the green-room, where
his majestic wife was left adjusting the robes of the Thane's
ambitious lady, before a mirror capable of reflecting her lofty
and splendid figure, previous to her first entrance on the stage
for the evening. Already Mrs. Spiffard had established her
fame in this character; still, her husband was anxious to see
the reception she would meet from a brilliant audience, many
of whom were already thumping with sticks, and stamping impatiently,
for the show to commence; for to the thumpers and
stampers, Macbeth was little more than a show.

Mrs. Spiffard, as my intelligent reader already knows, was
eminently gifted by nature for the representative of the ambitious,
guilty, and sublime Lady Macbeth. Her tall and
masculine frame; powerfully expressive eye; strongly marked,
black, flexible brow, and mental energy in the expression of
passions, (by no means uncongenial to her nature, or strangers
to her vigorous but ill regulated intellectual faculties,) would
have made her, had they been brought together, no contemptible
rival to the great Lady Macbeth of the English stage.

“Ha! Mr. Spiffard, I am glad to encounter you here,” said
Allen. “You must give me your opinion of the play and the
acting. Cooper has got it up in magnificent style; and has

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

added to his reputation by playing Macbeth. Don't you think
so? Is it not his best part?”

“We actors must be cautious when we speak of actors. I
think the Hamlet of Cooper even better than his Macbeth. But
we shall see Cooke likewise, though not to advantage. I will
speak frankly of the play and the players generally, provided
you give me your opinion of Mrs. Spiffard's performance.”

“Agreed. I have seen her in the character before; by Jove,
she is superb! Let us go into this box.”

“No. These boxes are crowded. There is more room
aloft: besides I don't like to sit below—I am too notorious.”

“Well, well; but not the upper tier; that is truly too notorious.
Let's go into the Shakspeare.”

This was a spacious central box in the second tier; principally
occupied by men, and supposed to be the resort of
critics. They took their seats accordingly, rather back from
the stage, the front seats being already crowded. The play
commenced.

Allen would have spoken, but Spiffard quietly remarked—
“Between the acts there is time enough to compare notes.
Let us now see, hear, and observe.”

Mrs. Spiffard outdid herself, and exceeded her husband's
expectations. She was, indeed, the undaunted leader of the
wavering Thane. The instigator to atrocious murder. The
woman who could unsex herself to place a crown on the head
of her husband. Who could herself have done the deed of
blood, but that the victim resembled her father. She embodied
herself with the character; for it suited, as she felt, her appearance,
and her histrionic powers. The soul with which the poet
had endowed his creation, was transfused into the actress, as
the fabled magician, leaving his own body, could animate the
body of another, and accomplish his wishes, by appearing in the
corse of one he had murdered. She possessed the queen-like
port and towering height of Siddons, though not the elegance of
her form. She could assume the insidious smile and courteous
action, when she welcomed the good Duncan to the castle,
where the nest of the swallow betokened purity of air, although
she had already plotted the manner of his death. The high tone
of her ill-governed mind enabled her to conceive and express
the feelings of the haughty Scottish dame, while urging the
Thane to treason and inhospitable homicide.

With an elevated head, surrounded and coped with locks
and braids, glossy and black as the raven's plumage; with
murky brows, that could be elevated to a crescent, or bent

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

into the contorted wavings of a serpent; with a voice deep
toned and clear, she spoke and looked the destiny of the man
who would, but dared not.

All the scenes in which these terrible powers were displayed
by the actress, had been witnessed by her husband, before the
occurrence, which, as we shall see, occasioned his leaving the
front of the theatre. Allen remained, and saw the consummation
of her art; the triumph of her power over the audience.

When in the troubled wanderings of guilt-directed somnambulism,
the actress appeared in her white night clothes, colourless,
desolate, the black masses of dishevelled hair streaming
portentously over the snow-white dress; her glaring eyes starting
from their sockets, to gaze upon the little bloody spot that
would not “out.” That head so lofty and regal, which, at the banquet,
had been decorated with a royal diadem, now devoid of
ornament or covering. The tresses which then had been mingled
with sparkling jewels, now hanging in lines on each side
of the pallid countenance, and only striking the beholder with
admiration of their unusual profusion, as they float over her
snowy garments, forming a long black veil, almost sweeping
the floor as she stalks, ghost-like, and with her death-white
fingers strives to erase from her hand the stain fixed upon her
soul. When the spectators beheld this, breath seemed suspended,
and silence was only broken, when, by the vanishing of
the figure, the magic of the scene ceased.

This last great exhibition of his wife's tragic powers, Spifford
had not seen. For while, in the pride of his heart, he had
been absorbed in admiration of the previous incidents of the
play—while he was administering balm to his soul by the
thought, “surely such a mind will rise superior to all that is
unworthy”—while filled with new hope, and elevated by a dignified
matrimonial reflection from the mirror of the stage, two
rough and clownish fellows, enveloped in coarse furzy overcoats,
boisterously entered the box. They might, from their
exterior and manner, have been two frequenters, if not inhabitants,
of the Five-points, who had mistaken their way, and
stumbled upon the haunts of refinement instead of those devoted
to noise and vulgarity. They strided from seat to seat, leaving
on each the marks of their dirty boots, as I have seen men in
better clothing do upon the benches of the pit. These ruffians
took a station, standing, by the side of Spiffard, almost touching
his elbow as he sat.

The noise they made in the lobby, and on their entrance,

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

had annoyed our sensitive man of temperance. Their mode of
approach and attitude annoyed him still more. His sense of
propriety, and his physical senses, shared in the suffering; he
heard the crackling of roasted pea-nuts, and his olfactories
were assailed by the smell of those rivals of Shakspeare,
mingled with others, of tobacco and alcohol, brought in their
clothing from the last tavern they had loitered in. The senses
of a temperate man are acute in proportion to their purity.
The moral as well as physical sense of Spiffard was offended:
his peculiar circumstances increased the offence.

The total indifference to the passing scene, which these intruders
evinced, aggravated the irritation of Spiffard. He arose.
He looked in their faces. They looked over his head. He
mounted on the seat and stood beside them, swelling with indignation
as near as might be to the size and height of the
offenders. They heeded him not. He resumed his seat, that
he might not disturb the performance.

“Who is that tall raw-boned grenadier of a woman?” said
one. “She's a thunderer.”

“That's Lady Macbeth.”

“She's a roarer. Any thing but a lady, thank'ee! Unless
its a landlady. Fine feathers make fine birds; or else she
looks more like a landlady from Banker-street, than a woman
fit for a room like that. See how she tosses her black mop
about, and knits her burnt-cork eye-brows at Cooper.”

This dialogue attracted the attention of Allen, who had been
carried away by the passing scene of the stage. Spiffard saw
this, and felt as if it was incumbent upon him to repress the insolence
of these disturbers of peace and defiers of decency.
The neighbouring young men, too, had their attention drawn
from the stage, and with the levity of youth began to laugh;
and one or two of them looked at Spiffard, as if recognising in
him the husband of the actress on whom these indecent remarks
were made. At least he thought so. Again he tried
to look them into silence. That again failed. His choler
rose--and he rose. Spiffard was conscious of his own extraordinary
muscular strength, his agility, and his skill in all
the arts of defence. He felt, and perhaps truly, that he could
throw either of these big bullies into the pit; but he made as
marked a distinction as Sir Charles Grandison, between defence
and offence; and such an act might be particularly offensive
to the quiet people below. He squared himself with
an air of defiance, and of threatened hostility. The aggressors

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

still overlooked him. When the drop-curtain fell, at the termination
of the act, he sprung upon the seat, and his enemies
not only looked towards him but made way for him.

Fixing his eyes on the nearest of his unwelcome neighbours,
Spiffard said, with firmness and deliberation,—“You may
imagine yourselves wondrous witty in your remarks on
the play and actors; but you may be assured they savour
more of ignorance than humour. Before you recommence,
what I consider impertinence, I must inform you,
that the lady of whom you have spoken disrespectfully, is my
wife. To disturb an audience is a mark of blackguardism in
which I did not think fit to imitate you. But, if the impertinence
is repeated, I am willing and able to punish it.” Spiffard
appeared to be in earnest. His antagonists felt that they
were wrong. The offenders looked first at Spiffard and his
handsome herculean companion, Allen—then at each other—
laughed—and as they meant nothing by their frivolous and
thoughtless ribaldry, they turned away from the incensed comedian,
and, quiting their conspicuous situation, silently left the
box; not without covering their retreat by an affected laugh.”

Spiffard felt himself a victor. The enemy had fled, and he
was undisputed master of the field. He had been the champion
of decency, good order, the fair sex generally, and his
own wife in particular. He enjoyed the glow of self-approbation,
and after having retained his triumphant stand for a few
moments, he resumed his seat; but soon left his companion—
descended from the Shakspeare—passed through the lobbies
with longer strides than usual—walked somewhat heroically
out of the theatre—passed through the crowd of blackguards
in its front—groped his way through Ann-street and
(places at that time the resort and habitation of vice and
depravity) and, having entered the back door of the Theatre-alley--,
marched into the green-room with a dignified air, approaching
a little, to swagger—passed unnoticed by the students
who were conning their parts, at the last moment, before the
expected summons of the call-boy—and took his stand with
his back to the fire, (a coat skirt under each arm) as much
like a thorough John Bull, as could be expected from one of
John's Yankee progeny, even when swelling with the pride of
self-approved prowess, and longing for an opportunity to relate
the circumstances attending upon recent victory.

If our readers think such feelings incompatible with our
water-drinker's good sense and real dignity of character, let
them look back to their own lives, and examine the motives

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

for many of their past actions. Let them seek for the causes
of those moments of exultation in which they have felt like
heroes of romance, defying fortune or foe to harm them: or
of those sinkings of the soul, when humbled in spirit, nothing
on earth or in the air—nothing in man, “or woman either,”
delighted them; and probably they will find their causes for
pride or despondency as little “german to the matter” as those
which now swelled the bosom of Zebediah Spiffard. Disease,
water-gruel, nausea, sea-sickness, or dire, indefinable dyspepsia,
are the devils which pull down courage: while good appetite,
a good dinner, and good digestion, lift a man to the skies,
as surely as gas does a balloon, unless he is well provided with
ballast. Now, the consciousness of having prevented the interruption
of rational enjoyment in hundreds of well-disposed
citizens, and of having put down, by just reproof, the insolence
directed against a female, is a better cause for exultation than
beef or pudding, even when “good digestion waits on appetite
and health on both.”

Spiffard's recreant adversaries only laughed at the adventure,
and soon forgot the tall lady with black hair and eye-brows,
or her short sturdy husband. The incident I have related
produced no effect on their future lives, that I know of.
Not so with our hero. Trifling as the circumstance may appear,
it was one, among other seemingly trifling, but really
potent causes, which affected all the future course of his life;
and aided in inflicting the keenest pangs of misery, and a deplorable
death, on a highly gifted being.

We left Spiffard backing the green-room fire. The warmth
of a good fire is no inoperative cause when properly applied—
and philosophy has determined that heat expands matter.

It was Mr. Cooper's custom to walk into the green-room
occasionally in his way from his dressing-room to the stage.
Zeb tried to catch his eye in vain. He was too full of his own
kingly attributes to notice the low comedian. He proceeded
to and fro, he visited his festive hall, or his castle of Dunsinane,
without appearing to note any thing of the real life of these degenerate
days, when men die if their throats are cut, or the
“brain is out,” and do not rise to “push us from our seats.”

Spiffard's desire to communicate grew with disappointment.
He found an opportunity to mention the incident to the stage-manager,
Mr. Simpson, who approved his conduct, but did not
appear to enter sufficiently into the victor's feelings, or appreciate
fully the service he had done.

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

He ascended to Cooke's dressing-room, and finding the
veteran at leisure, and disposed to listen, he related his adventure
a second time. The variation was very little from the
first, which was very literal. Cooke, who, as has been said,
played Macduff to Cooper's Macbeth, the two tragedians occasionally
playing second to each other, was not called to “go
on” until he had heard and warmly approved his young friend's
conduct. He was cool and collected, for his late sufferings
had not yet lost their salutary effect. He was at leisure, for
Macduff was in England and had not yet heard of the massacre
of his “little ones.” That important personage, the call-boy,
(whose usual duty only extends to calling performers from
the green-room, but is stretched to the dressing-rooms of the
magnates of the drama) at length appeared, and shouted,
“Macduff.” Macduff hastened to the scene of action, and
Spiffard was left with trustworthy Davenport, who opportunely
entered with the call-boy.

“A great house to-night,” said Trusty. “They swarm like
a snarl of bees, before hiving, at the sound of a warming-pan.
I don't wonder at it, when there is three sich great actors, and
sich a play to be seen.

“A fine house,” said Spiffard.

“To my notion,” continued the traveller, “Mrs. Spiffard
beats all the world to-night. I'm not easily frit, but darn me,
if she didn't almost scear me just now.”

“Why? have you been in front, Davenport?”

“No, sir, I have been standing behind the prompter, and
looking over his head. I should be puzzled to do that thing,
if Mrs. Spiffard was prompter, for she is a most a magnificent
woman—'most as tall as I be.”

Zeb stretched himself as high as Davenport's shoulder.

“Did you notice any disturbance in the boxes while Mrs.
Spiffard was on the stage?”

“Not the dropping of a feather:—only when they made all
shake again with applauding her. What a thunder-clap that
was, to be sure!”

Spiffard could not resist the tempting opportunity offered
by his brother Yankee's leading remarks, and he told, for the
third time, the adventure of the Shakspeare box, with but little
variation.

At length the tragedy was over; Spiffard took his stand
again before the green-room fire, to wait for his wife.

Cooper having lost both crown and life, was sooner restored
to the habiliments of commoners than the lady, and joined the

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

comedian. Soon after Simpson and Hilson, who were dressed
for the farce, added to the party.

“Spiffard, have you been in front?”

“Yes; and I never was more provoked in my life.”

“How?—What could ruffle your equanimity?”

“Two blackguards came into the Shakspeare box and disturbed
the audience while Mrs. Spiffard was in one of her best
scenes; and the scoundrels made use of insolent language
respecting her—her person—her acting—and I think I can
appeal to any one in favour of her Lady Macbeth at all times.”

“That you may.”

“She certainly never play'd it or look'd it better, than
to-night.”

“More than well,” said Hilson.

“That's equivocal,” said Cooper.

“No, upon my honour I mean fair and honest.”

“But you, Spiff, when they insulted Mrs. Spiffard?—What
said you?” asked the manager.

“`This may be sport,' said I, `to you, but it is a serious injury,—
a wanton outrage upon the feelings of the audience and
the actor or actress.' ”

“`Sport to you, but death to us,' just what the frogs said to
the boys when they pelted them.”

“Pooh, Tam, don't interrupt the story.”

“`Your remarks are impertinent'—I don't mean yours Hilson—
and `savour more of ignorance than wit.' ”

“Very well, Spiff, I'll mark you for that,” said Hilson.

“`None but blackguards would insult a female or disturb
the representation of scenes in which the feelings of an audience
are deeply interested.' ”

“Well. What said they.”

“They look'd at each other, and then at me, as much as to
say, `who are you?'—I answered the look—”

“With a look?”

“`I am that lady's husband.' They look'd at each other
again—appeared to feel like fools by quitting their places, for
they were standing on the seats of the box, and soon after
they shuffled off, as well as they could.”

“And left you `cock of the walk,' as Milstone says.”

“We ought all to thank you,” said Cooper, “they were
your pea-nut fellows, I suppose.”

The reader will observe that this recital varied somewhat
from the scene as he witnessed it. These were not the very
words that were spoken. Yet Spiffard did not mean to

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

misrepresent. This was more than a thrice-told tale. Who
among us, lovers of truth as we all are, tells the same story in
the same words?

In very truth, there is something very strange in this machinery
of ours:—excitement or depression; winding up, or
running down; causes those sounds which we call words, to
vary not only in tone but signification; and a little variation in
the light, materially changes the picture. Zebediah Spiffard is
our hero, and an adorer of truth: yet he was but a man. He
was tempted, perhaps, by the influence of his light-hearted
companions, to deviate from the strict letter of his story, and,
like many others, whose memoirs have not yet been published,
dearly he paid for it.

It can't be too strongly insisted upon, in defence of Spiffard,
that this, as has been already said, was the fourth time that he
told this story,—perhaps it was the hundredth time that he had
thought it over. Now, there is a poetical spirit in mankind, or
at least in some men, and women, which amplifies, or magnifies,
or adorns, or distorts, according to circumstances, without
any criminal intention of falsifying or deceiving, but merely
from an amiable desire to appear well in the eyes of our hearers,
as we dress, decorate, and show ourselves to the world,
not to gratify ourselves, but to give pleasure to others.

Of all men, Zebediah Spiffard was the most conscientious in
his statements of fact; the most literal in his repetition of
words, when cool and collected; but now he was, and had
been for some time, in a continual state of excitement; and his
imagination (always active) unnaturally vivid. `Will he, nill
he,' his imagination would colour his words, and even his
cheeks had a tinge of red in consequence of its activity.

“What manner of men were these?” inquired Cooper.

“Of very bad manners, I should think,” said Hilson.

“Tam, keep your stage jokes till you meet those who relish
them. If you speak before you get your cue, I'll forfeit you.
What did the fellows look like, Spiff?”

“Rough looking fellows, wrapped up in coarse great coats.”

“You behaved like a hero. I doubt not they were some of
your pea-nut-munching gentry. I will petition the corporation
for an ordinance prohibiting the sale of pea-nuts, from the hour
of six until ten, P. M.”

“Why those hours?” asked Hilson.

“Because the intermediate hours are devoted to tragedy—
tragedy hours. They may eat as many pea-nuts as they please
while you are mumming Numpo.”

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

By this time, Cooke had doffed his harness, and, arrayed in
suit of sober grey, entered the green-room. He joined the
group of young men by the fire. Spiffard went out to inquire
if his wife was ready to go home.

“So,” said George Frederic, “Mr. Spiffard has had an affair
with some persons who behaved improperly in the boxes. I
give him credit and thanks for putting down the illiberal impertinence
of these box-lobby-loungers.”

“Pooh! they were only a brace of blackguard swaggerers,”
was Hilson's remark. “They didn't know the difference between
box and gallery.”

“The ticket-seller might teach them that. No, no. I
gather from what Mr. Spiffard told me, that they were men of
some bearing.”

“Bears, I doubt not,” lisped Hilson.

“They found themselves in the wrong box, and crept out,”
continued Cooke.

“They saw by his squaring,” added Hilson, laughing and
lisping, that Spiff was a boxer; and as Allen's square shoulders
were ready to back him, they backed out. Don't you call
this `backing your friends?'

“I'll bet a hundred,” said the manager, “that Spiffard begins
to think this an affair of some consequence. Hark'ee,
Tam, couldn't something be made of this?”

Mr. and Mrs. Spiffard entered. The gentlemen made way
for the towering and fine-looking dame. Cooke complimented
her on her great performance. She replied in an appropriate
manner—cast one glance at the full length mirror of the green-room—
bowed her “good night” to the young gentlemen—
shook hands with George Frederick—took her husband's arm—
and—they were gone.

Spiffard walked off with his stately and over-topping dame,
better pleased with her and with himself, that both had acted
well. He had not felt so much satisfied with his lot, since the
scene in the park. They had no sooner disappeared, than
Cooke observed,

“That's a fine actress; and a fine woman.”

“A great woman,” said Hilson; “and Zeb's a great man,
for a man no greater. And I think he behaved most heroically
to-night; and what's more, he thinks so, too.”

“He is what the old dramatists call `a tall fellow,' ” said
Cooke.

“Of his inches.”

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“You envy him his tall wife.”

“He showed courage when he attacked that castle.”

“While this passed, sportively, between Cooke and Hilson,
Cooper was in a revery.

“Good night, lads, and good thoughts,” said the veteran—
for Trustworthy entered to announce a hack, ready for the
convalescent tragedian, who left the scene: a scene where
actors and actresses were reading their “parts,” preparatory
to their “going on;” some refreshing memory; some conning
over that which had been neglected—some trying to comprehend
the meaning of a passage, to which their cue furnished
no clue. There, two might be seen rehearsing a dialogue;
and near them, a third, reciting, aloud, speeches from an author:
the whole forming a medley of babel-like sounds, proceeding
from the motley-dressed company.

“Cooper,” said Hilson, “though I like to quiz Spiff, I think
he has pluck. If these same fellows had shown fight, the affair
might have ended in a box-lobby challenge.”

The tragedian made no answer, but stood with his brow
most terrifically knit. Hilson continued, chuckling, “I wish
that the bullies had turned upon Zeb, only for the fun of it. I
suppose they were big-boned Goliahs, who might think, conjointly,
to make a meal of one of us middle-sized gentlemen;
or, singly, to put Spiff into either of their coat-pockets; but
they would have found him a hard bargain.”

“What did you say about challenge?”

“I? Nothing.”

“ `Darkly a project peers upon my mind, like the red moon
when rising in the cast.' ”

“Numpo!” said the call-boy.

“Tam,” said Cooper, very deliberately, “do you and
Ned—”

“I'm called.”

“Stop. Do you and Ned Simpson meet me in my room,
after the farce,—”

“I have been called.”

“Old Kent has orders for a supper—”

“Terrapins?”

“Terrapins. If I do not mistake my talents, or Kent's, I
will produce a plot shall give zest to his supper. I will edify
you with a plan of operations, that aptly carried into execution,
will try little Zebediah's courage to the heart of it.”

“Why, Cooper, you don't think—”

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