sharply, "I want you to _follow it_ as
well as to listen to it. Now you take some money--you _have_ some money
saved, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, sir!" answered John.

"Well, then," he turned his queer eye on him, he took a long, full
breath, "well, then, you just get some of that money, and you go to a
hardware store," his rage was rising visibly, "and you buy a good sharp
hatchet, and then I want you to take it home and chop your d----d fool
head off!" and ripping off his vest he made a furious charge upon the
almost paralyzed Ogden, clouting him from the room, while roaring like a
bull.

He had played one set of plays so long he had lost the power to study
quickly, and he was so ill-advised once as to attempt a new part, on
rather short notice. The play was a miserable jumble of impossible
situations and strained, high-flown language; and, of all absurd things,
Mr. Couldock attempted to play a young Irish hero, with a love-scene--in
fact he was supposed to represent the young Emmet. Dear heaven! what a
sight he was, in those buckskin riding breeches (his legs were not beyond
suspicion as to their straightness), that cutaway green coat, and the
dinky little conical hat, looking so maliciously "larky," perched over
his fiercest eye. He forgot all his lines, but he never forgot his
profanity, and that night it took on a wild originality that was simply
convulsing. In one scene he had to promise to save his beloved Ireland.
He quite forgot the speech, and being reminded of it by the prompter, he
roared at the top of his voice: "I don't care! what the devil's Ireland
to me! d----n Ireland! I wish it and the man that wrote this play were
both at the bottom of the sea, with cock-eyed sharks eatin' 'em!" Then he
suddenly pulled out his part and began to search wildly for his next
scene, that he might try to recall his lines; at this he continued till
he was called to go upon the stage, then he made a rush, and in a moment
the house was laughing.

"Oh, dear! what was it?" Everyone ran to peep on the stage. Mr. Couldock
had discovered they were laughing at him, and was becoming recklessly
furious. Mr. Ellsler, fearing he would insult the people, hastily rang
down the curtain. Then Mr. Couldock, as _Emmet_, faced round to us, and
the laughter was explained. When he was reading over his part he had put
on a big pair of spectacles, and when he hurried on he simply pushed them
up and left them there. A young lover with big, old-fas