e round him that makes the comic man so
generous. Everybody is generous on the stage. They are giving away their
purses all day long; that is the regulation "tip" on the stage--one's
purse. The moment you hear a tale of woe, you grab it out of your
pocket, slap it in to the woe-er's palm, grip his hand, dash away a
tear, and exit; you don't even leave yourself a 'bus fare home. You walk
back quickly and get another purse.

Middle-class people and others on the stage who are short of purses
have to content themselves with throwing about rolls of bank-notes and
tipping servants with five-pound checks. Very stingy people on the stage
have been known to be so cussed mean as to give away mere sovereigns.

But they are generally only villains or lords that descend to this sort
of thing. Respectable stage folk never offer anything less than a purse.

The recipient is very grateful on receiving the purse (he never looks
inside) and thinks that Heaven ought to reward the donor. They get a
lot of work out of Heaven on the stage. Heaven does all the odd jobs for
them that they don't want to go to the trouble and expense of doing for
themselves. Heaven's chief duty on the stage is to see to the repayment
of all those sums of money that are given or lent to the good people. It
is generally requested to do this to the tune of a "thousand-fold"--an
exorbitant rate when you come to think of it.

Heaven is also expected to take care that the villain gets properly
cursed, and to fill up its spare time by bringing misfortune upon the
local landlord. It has to avenge everybody and to help all the good
people whenever they are in trouble. And they keep it going in this
direction.

And when the hero leaves for prison Heaven has to take care of his wife
and child till he comes out; and if this isn't a handful for it, we
don't know what would be!

Heaven on the stage is always on the side of the hero and heroine and
against the police.

Occasionally, of late years, the comic man has been a bad man, but you
can't hate him for it. What if he does ruin the hero and rob the heroine
and help to murder the good old man? He does it all in such a genial,
light-hearted spirit that it is not in one's heart to feel angry
with him. It is the way in which a thing is done that makes all the
difference.

Besides, he can always round on his pal, the serious villain, at the
end, and that makes it all right.

The comic man is not a sportsman. If he g