the cords run more quickly then. She was getting tired, they
said; the curtain had been up too long. Be that as it might, nothing
could persuade Susan Josselyn to sit again, and "Consolation" could not
be repeated.

So then came "Mother Hubbard and her Dog"--the slow old lady and the
knowing beast that was always getting one step ahead of her. The
possibility had occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite as she and Dakie Thayne
amused themselves one day with Captain Green's sagacious Sir Charles
Grandison, a handsome black spaniel, whose trained accomplishment was to
hold himself patiently in any posture in which he might be placed, until
the word of release was given. You might stand him on his hind legs,
with paws folded on his breast; you might extend him on his back, with
helpless legs in air; you might put him in any attitude possible to be
maintained, and maintain it he would, faithfully, until the signal was
made. From this prompting came the illustration of Mother Hubbard. Also,
Leslie Goldthwaite had seized the hidden suggestion of application, and
hinted it in certain touches of costume and order of performance. Nobody
would think, perhaps, at first, that the striped scarlet and white
petticoat under the tucked-up train, or the common print apron of dark
blue, figured with innumerable little white stars, meant anything beyond
the ordinary adjuncts of a traditional old woman's dress; but when, in
the second scene, the bonnet went on,--an ancient marvel of exasperated
front and crown, pitched over the forehead like an enormous helmet, and
decorated, upon the side next the audience, with black and white eagle
plumes springing straight up from the fastening of an American shield;
above all, when the dog himself appeared, "dressed in his clothes" (a
cane, an all-round white collar and a natty little tie, a pair of
three-dollar tasseled kid gloves dangling from his left paw, and a small
monitor hat with a big spread--eagle stuck above the brim,--the
remaining details of costume being of no consequence),--when he stood
"reading the news" from a huge bulletin,--"LATEST BY CABLE FROM
EUROPE,"--nobody could mistake the personification of Old and Young
America.

It had cost much pains and many dainty morsels to drill Sir Charles,
with all the aid of his excellent fundamental education; and the great
fear had been that he might fail them at the last. But the scenes were
rapid, in consideration of canine infirmity. If the cupboard