ning, a clean tumbler, and a
corkscrew."

The early days of George Frederick Cooke were passed at
Berwick-upon-Tweed. Left an orphan at a very tender age, he had been
cared for and reared by two aunts, his mother's sisters, who provided
him with such education as he ever obtained. There were no play-books
in the library of these ladies, yet somehow the youth contrived to
become acquainted with the British drama. Strolling companies
occasionally visited the town, and a certain passion for the theatre
possessed the boys of Berwick, with Cooke, of course, among them. They
formed themselves into an amateur company, and represented, after a
fashion, various plays, rather for their own entertainment, however,
than the edification of their friends. And they patronised, so far as
they could, every dramatic troupe that appeared in the neighbourhood
of Berwick. But they had more goodwill than money to bestow upon the
strollers, and were often driven to strange subterfuges in their
anxiety to see the play, and in their inability to pay the price of
admission to the theatre. On one occasion Cooke and two or three
friends secreted themselves beneath the stage, in the hope of stealing
out during the performance and joining the audience by means of an
opening in a dark passage leading to the pit. Discovery and
ignominious ejection followed upon this experiment. Another essay led
to a curious adventure. Always on the alert to elude the vigilance of
the doorkeeper, the boys again effected an entrance into the theatre.
The next consideration was how to bestow themselves in a place of
concealment until the time for raising the curtain should arrive, when
they might hope, in the confusion and bustle behind the scenes, to
escape notice, and enjoy the marvels of the show. "Cooke," records his
biographer, "espied a barrel, and congratulating himself on this safe
and snug retreat, he crept in, like the hero of that immortal modern
drama, 'Tekeli.'" Unfortunately this hiding-place was one of
considerable peril. Cooke perceived that for companion tenants of his
barrel he had two large cannon-balls--twenty-four pounders; but being
as yet but incompletely initiated into the mysteries of the scene, he
did not suspect the theatrical use to which these implements of war
were constantly applied. He was in the thunder-barrel of the theatre!
The play was "Macbeth," and the thunder was required in the first
scene, to give due effect to the entrance of t