has danced a jig, and he brings beer for the actors, and helps lace
up corsets, and anything he can do to add to the effect of the play.
Privately, now, I have been acting as a supe for a long time, on the
sly, and my folks didn't know anything about it, but since I reformed
and decided to be good, I felt it my duty to tell Ma and Pa about it.
The news broke Ma all up, at first, but Pa said some of the best actors
in this country were supes once, and some of them were now, and he
thought suping would be the making of me. Ma thought going on the stage
would be my ruination. She said the theater was the hotbed of sin, and
brought more ruin than the church could head off. But when I told her
that they always gave a supe two or three extra tickets for his family,
she said the theatre had some redeeming features, and when I said my
entrance upon the stage would give me a splendid opportunity to get the
recipe for face powder from the actresses, for Ma, and I could find out
how the actresses managed to get number four feet into number one shoes,
Ma said she wished I would commence suping right off. Ma says there are
some things about the theater that are not so alfired bad, and she wants
me to get seats for the first comic opera that comes along. Pa wants
it understood with the manager that a supe's father has a right to go
behind the scenes to see that no harm befalls him, but I know what Pa
wants. He may seem pious, and all that, but he likes to look at ballet
girls better than any meek and lowly follower I ever see, and some day
you will hear music in the air. Pa thinks theaters are very bad, when
he has to pay a dollar for a reserved seat, but when he can get in for
nothing as a relative of one of the 'perfesh', the theater has many
redeeming qualities. Pa and Ma think I am going into the business fresh
and green, but I know all about it. When I played with McCullough here
once--

"Oh, what are you giving us," said the grocery man in disgust, "when you
played with McCullough! What did you do!"

"What did I do? Why, you old seed cucumber, the whole play centered
around me. Do you remember the scene in the Roman forum, where
McCullough addressed the populace of Rome? I was the populace. Don't you
remember a small feller standing in front of the Roman orator taking
it in; with a night shirt on, with bare legs and arms? That was me,
and everything depended on me. Suppose I had gone off the stage at the
critical moment, or