d the brandy-bottle; the _Ghost_ handed him a
glass of gin and sugar; the _Queen_ gave him the little end of a
Bologna sausage and a piece of cheese; the stage carpenter, in his
bewilderment, could think of nothing but the glue-pot; the property man
hastened to his aid with a tin cup full of rose-pink, and a plate-full
of property apple-dumplings (ingeniously but deceptively constructed out
of canvas and bran), while an insane scene-shifter first deluged him
with water, and then offered him the bucket to dry himself with.

[Illustration]

John Spout, who had been behind the curtain, and witnessed this last
performance, immediately came out, borrowed Wagstaff's notebook, and
left therein his pictorial reminiscence of this scene as follows:
Overdale had been profuse in his explanations of the many curious
scenes, and Wagstaff had noted down his words carefully in his
memorandum-book. Once when the _Ghost_ tripped and fell through the
scenery, caving in the side of a brick house, and kicking his spiritual
heels through the belfry of a church in the background, Overdale said
that this was _Ophelia_, who had been taken suddenly crazy, and in her
frenzy had imagined it necessary to hasten to the nearest grocery for a
bar of soap to saw her leg off with. _Polonius_, he explained, was
_Horatio_, and _Hamlet_ was a little boy who run on errands for the cook
of the palace, by which culinary appellation he designated the Queen of
Denmark. He said the plot of the piece was, that the king wanted to
marry the cook, but her relatives objected to the alliance, because his
majesty hadn't got shirts enough for a change.

All of which was carefully written down by Wagstaff, with divers
alterations, emendations, additions, and extemporaneous illustrations,
by John Spout.

This last-named individual asserts to the present time that he cannot
tell who were the most humbugged--the people who paid their money, and
laughed at the play under the impression that it was a farce, or the
unfortunates who performed the play, laboring under the hallucination
that they were acting tragedy.

All were, however, satisfied, that it was a kink of the Elephant's tail,
which he has not yet uncurled in any city of America--save Gotham.

MRS. THROUGHBY DAYLIGHT'S FANCY DRESS JAM.

"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle"----

MR. Remington Dropper had a great respect for upper tendom; was almost
inclined to adm