ightest mention of the "wild horse," and when, broken and exhausted,
the shepherds find them both lying at the foot of the mountain, the house
seemed to shake with laughter.

When the play was at last over, old white Bob walked over to his master
and mumbled his hand. Mr. Miles pushed him away with pretended anger,
crying: "You infernal old idiot, I'd sell you for a three-cent stamp with
gum on it!"

Bob looked hard at him a moment, then he calmly crossed behind him and
mumbled his other hand, and Mr. Miles pulled his ears, and said that "he
himself was the idiot for expecting an untrained, unrehearsed horse to
play such a part," and old Bob agreeing with him perfectly, they were, as
always, at peace with each other.

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH

I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study _King Charles_ in One Afternoon
and Play Without a Rehearsal--Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation.

Already in that third season my position had become an anomalous one,
from that occasion when, because of sickness, I had in one afternoon
studied, letter perfect, the part of _King Charles_ in "Faint Heart Never
Won Fair Lady," and played it in borrowed clothes and without any
rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in
the book. It was an astonishing thing to do, and nearly everyone had a
kind word for me. The stage manager, or rather the prompter, for Mr.
Ellsler was his own stage manager, patted me on the shoulder and said:
"'Pon my soul, girl, you're a wonder! I think pretty well of my own
study, but you can beat me. You never missed a word, and besides that
I've seen the part played worse many a time. I don't know what to say to
you, my dear, but a girl that can do that can do most anything."

Ah, yes! and that was just what the powers that were seemed to
think--that I could do almost anything, for from that day I became a sort
of dramatic scape-goat, to play the parts of the sick, the halt, the
cross, the tricky, for whenever an actor or actress turns up with a
remarkable study--the ability to learn almost any part in a given
time--he or she is bound to be "put upon." Sickness will increase,
tempers will get shorter, airs of superiority will be assumed, all
because there is someone ready to play the obnoxious part, someone ready
to rush into the breach and prevent the changing of the "bill."

So often was I playing parts, thus leaving only two in the ballet, that
another girl was engaged. Thus to