She slipped away and joined the others. The chorus was now entirely assembled on the stage. The sound of the rapidly-filling house reached us, softened through the thick baize curtain, a dull, continuous droning, as of water pouring into some huge cistern.
Suddenly there fell upon our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage manager--more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog--rushed into the midst of us and worried us into our positions, where the more experienced continued to converse in whispers, the rest of us waiting nervously, trying to remember our words. The chorus master, taking his stand with his back to the proscenium, held his white-gloved hand in readiness. The curtain rushed up, the house, a nightmare of white faces, appearing to run towards us. The chorus-master's white-gloved hand flung upward. A roar of voices struck upon my ear, but whether my own were of them I could not say; if I were singing at all it was unconsciously, mechanically. Later, I found myself standing in the wings beside the thin lady; the stage was in the occupation of the principals. On my next entrance my senses were more with me; I was able to look about me. Here and there a strongly-marked face among the audience stood out, but the majority were as indistinguishable as so many blades of grass. Looked at from the stage, the house seemed no more real than from the front do the painted faces upon a black cloth.
The curtain fell amid the usual applause, sounding to us behind it like the rattle of tiny stones against a window-pane. Three times it rose and fell, like the opening and shutting of a door; and then followed a scamper for the dressing-rooms, the long corridors being filled with the rustling of skirts and the scurrying of feet.
It was in the second act that the fishy-eyed young gentleman came into his own. The chorus had lingered till it was quite apparent that the tenor and the leading lady were in love with each other; then, with the exquisite delicacy so characteristic of a chorus, foreseeing that its further presence might be embarrassing, it turned to go, half to the east, the other half to the west. The fishy-eyed young man, starting from the centre, was the last to leave the stage. In another moment he would have disappeared from view. There came a voice from the gallery, clear, distinct, pathetic with entreaty:
"Don't go. Get behind a tree."
The request was instantly seconded by a roar of applause from every part of the house, followed by laughter. From that point onward the house was chiefly concerned with the fortunes of the fishy-eyed young gentleman. At his next entrance, disguised as a conspirator, he was welcomed with enthusiasm, his passing away regretted loudly. At the fall of the curtain, the tenor, furious, rushed up to him, and, shaking a fist in his face, demanded what he meant by it.
"I wasn't doing anything," explained the fishy-eyed young man.
"You went off sideways!" roared the tenor.
"Well, you told me not to look at you," explained meekly the fishy-eyed young gentleman. "I must go off somehow. I regard you as a very difficult man to please."
At the final fall of the curtain the house appeared divided as regarded the merits of the opera; but for "Goggles" there was a unanimous and enthusiastic call, and the while we were dressing a message came for "Goggles" that Mr. Hodgson wished to see him in his private room.
"He can make a funny face, no doubt about it," commented one gentleman, as "Goggles" left the room.
"I defy him to make a funnier one than God Almighty's made for him," responded the massive gentleman.
"There's a deal in luck," observed, with a sigh, another, a tall, handsome young gentleman possessed of a rich bass voice.
Leaving the stage door, I encountered a group of gentlemen waiting upon the pavement outside. Not interested in them myself, I was hurrying past, when one laid a hand upon my shoulder. I turned. He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, with a dark Vandyke beard and soft, dreamy eyes.
"Dan!" I cried.
"I thought it was you, young 'un, in the first act," he answered. "In the second, when you came on without a moustache, I knew it. Are you in a hurry?"
"Not at all," I answered. "Are you?"
"No," he replied; "we don't go to press till Thursday, so I can write my notice to-morrow. Come and have supper with me at the Albion and we will talk. You look tired, young 'un."
"No," I assured him, "only excited--partly at meeting you."
He laughed, and drew my arm through his.