sed out of sight when a
sallow-faced stripling makes his appearance, and with that
characteristic effrontery for borrowing and never returning, of the
property-man of a country theatre, "desires" to know if Mr. McArthur
will lend him a skull.

"A skull!" ejaculates the old man, his bony fingers wandering to his
melancholy lip--"a skull!" and he fusses studiously round the little
cell-like place, looking distrustfully at the property-man, and then
turning an anxious eye towards his piles of rubbish, as if fearing some
plot is on foot to remove them to the infernal regions.

"You see," interrupts Mr. Property, "we play Hamlet to-night--expect a
crammed house--and our star, being scrupulous of his reputation, as all
small stars are, won't go on for the scene of the grave-digger, without
two skulls--he swears he won't! He raised the very roof of the theatre
this morning, because his name wasn't in bigger type on the bill. And if
we don't give him two skulls and plenty of bones to-night, he
swears--and such swearing as it is!--he'll forfeit the manager, have the
house closed, and come out with a card to the public in the morning. We
are in a fix, you see! The janitor only has one, and he lent us that as
if he didn't want to."

Mr. McArthur says he sees, and with an air of regained wisdom stops
suddenly, and takes from a shelf a dingy old board, on which is a
dingier paper, bearing curious inscriptions, no one but the old man
himself would have supposed to be a schedule of stock in trade. Such it
is, nevertheless. He rubs his spectacles, places them methodically upon
his face, wipes and wipes the old board with his elbow. "It's here if
it's anywhere!" says the old man, with a sigh. "It comes into my head
that among the rest of my valuables I've Yorick's skull."

"The very skull we want!" interrupts Property. And the old man quickens
the working of his lower jaw, and continues to rub at the board until he
has brought out the written mystery. "My ancestors were great people,"
he mumbles to himself, "great people!" He runs the crusty forefinger of
his right hand up and down the board, adding, "and my customers are all
of the first families, which is some consolation in one's poverty. Ah! I
have it here!" he exclaims, with childlike exultation, frisking his
fingers over the board. "One Yorick's skull--a time-worn, tenantless,
and valuable relic, in which graveyard worms have banqueted more than
once. Yes, young man, presented