It was a trying moment. They liked the funny, old chap, and did not wish to hurt his feelings--but good Heavens! the idea of turning him loose before an audience! Again came the voice of MacIlhenny, with the inevitable quotation: “Why whisper you--and answer not, my lords?”
A laugh followed, and the tormented actor asked: “Well, Sandy man, what on earth do you propose to read or recite?”
“Why,” answered he, “since you will be doing a tragedy, and I have no wish to outshine you in any way, I’ll just give them the ‘Trial Scene’ from ‘Pickwick.’”
Through the storm of merriment that followed one or two voices cried: “Let him do it! Let him do it! It will be great!” And just then, at the glass door of the saloon, a tall, gaunt woman appeared. She was one of that body of black-bombazine women who are never ragged, but are always rusty--who all appear of the same age, as they all seem to have passed with reluctant feet their fiftieth birthday. She tapped with a black cotton forefinger on the glass, and MacIlhenny went to her at once, and spoke with her a few moments--and one exclaimed: “The Two Dromios!” For indeed had it not been for her straight eyes, she might have been Sandy’s twin. When he returned some one said: “Your wife, MacIlhenny?”
“Aye,” he said, “aye--and though I don’t claim she’s a beauty, yet ‘I’ll give no blemish to her honor--none!’” At which they howled with delight, and when they were tired of pounding one another, the voice arose again: “Let him go on--oh, let him go on!” and another added: “Yes, let him go on, just to see how many he’ll kill before he gets off again!”
And so it happened that Sandy MacIlhenny, stonecutter by the grace of God, became, by the cruel whim of man, an actor, and was duly announced on the “benefit-bills” to read the “Trial Scene” from “Pickwick.”
Alas, “those whom the Gods will destroy, they first make mad!” It is an ancient promise, and so truly was it kept with this their chosen victim, that on the dark and fatal night that was the beginning of the end for him, poor MacIlhenny saw the radiant dawn of a superb success.
The night came, and a fairly good-sized audience was present. Sandy’s reading was placed between the first and second plays, and a more ludicrous figure never appeared before the public. By some mysterious process he had forced his widely bowed-legs into a pair of very narrow, straight-cut trousers. They were of an unsympathetic nature, and as he wore low-cut shoes, they basely betrayed about two inches of white, womany-looking stockings, thus giving a strong suggestion of impropriety to his whole “make-up.”