r. Ellsler said, quietly: "There is sickness in my company. The heavy
woman cannot act; this young girl will not look the part, of course, but
you need have no fear about the lines, she never loses a word."

"Curse the _words_! It is, that that little girl shall not read with the
sense one line, no, not one line of the Shakespeare!" his English was
fast going in his rage.

Mr. Ellsler answered: "She will read the part as well as you ever heard
it in your life, Mr. Bandmann." And Mr. Bandmann gave a jeering laugh,
and snapped his fingers loudly.

It was most insulting, and I felt overwhelmed with humiliation. Mr.
Ellsler said, angrily: "Very well, as I have no one else to offer you, we
will close the theatre for the night!"

But Mr. Bandmann did not want to close--not he. So, after swearing in
German for a time, he resumed rehearsal, and when my time came to speak I
could scarcely lift my drooping head or conquer the lump in my throat,
but, somehow, I got out the entreating words:

"Good Hamlet, cast thy Knighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark."

He lifted his head suddenly--I went on:

"Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust."

He exclaimed, surprisedly: "So! so!" as I continued my speech. Now in
this country, "So--so!" is a term applied to restless cows at
milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind,
suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say:

"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg."

and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: "So! so!" and I swiftly added the word
"Bossy," and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was
laughed at, and it took a whole week's time and an elaborate explanation,
to enable him to grasp the jest--but when he got a good hold of it, he
so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate.

During the rehearsal--which was difficult in the extreme, as his business
(_i.e._, actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different
from that we were used to--he never found one single fault with my
reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to
follow--for one taste of his temper had been enough.

Then came the night--a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose
garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery _Queen
Gertrude_ wears, passed unde