I'm
represented by these fellows who play it is the thing that rubs me the
wrong way. Why, I even hear that there's a troupe out in the western
part of the United States that puts the thing on with three Hamlets, two
ghosts, and a pair of blood-hounds. It's called the Uncle-Tom-Hamlet
Combination, and instead of my falling in love with one crazy Ophelia, I
am made to woo three dusky maniacs named Topsy on a canvas ice-floe,
while the blood-hounds bark behind the scenes. What sort of treatment is
that for a man of royal lineage?"

"It's pretty rough," said Napoleon. "As the poet ought to have said,
'Oh, Hamlet, Hamlet, what crimes are committed in thy name!'"

"I feel as badly about the play as Hamlet does," said Shakespeare, after
a moment of silent thought. "I don't bother much about this wild Western
business, though, because I think the introduction of the bloodhounds and
the Topsies makes us both more popular in that region than we should be
otherwise. What I object to is the way we are treated by these so-called
first-class intellectual actors in London and other great cities. I've
seen Hamlet done before a highly cultivated audience, and, by Jove, it
made me blush."

"Me too," sighed Hamlet. "I have seen a man who had a walk on him that
suggested spring-halt and locomotor ataxia combined impersonating my
graceful self in a manner that drove me almost crazy. I've heard my 'To
be or not to be' soliloquy uttered by a famous tragedian in tones that
would make a graveyard yawn at mid-day, and if there was any way in which
I could get even with that man I'd do it."

"It seems to me," said Blackstone, assuming for the moment a highly
judicial manner--"it seems to me that Shakespeare, having got you into
this trouble, ought to get you out of it."

"But how?" said Shakespeare, earnestly. "That's the point. Heaven knows
I'm willing enough."

Hamlet's face suddenly brightened as though illuminated with an idea.
Then he began to dance about the room with an expression of glee that
annoyed Doctor Johnson exceedingly.

"I wish Darwin could see you now," the Doctor growled. "A kodak picture
of you would prove his arguments conclusively."

"Rail on, O philosopher!" retorted Hamlet. "Rail on! I mind your
railings not, for I the germ of an idea have got."

"Well, go quarantine yourself," said the Doctor. "I'd hate to have one
of your idea microbes get hold of me."

"What's the scheme?" asked Shakespeare.