——­Have I ever acted in private theatricals?  Often.  I have played the part of the “Poor Gentleman,” before a great many audiences,—­more, I trust, than I shall ever face again.  I did not wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer’s smile upon my countenance, and made my bow and acted my part.  I have seen my name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the place by daylight.  I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most desperate of buffos,—­one who was obliged to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations.  I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation.  I have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother.  I have run off the rails, and stuck all night in snowdrifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together.  Perhaps I shall give you some of my experiences one of these days;—­I will not now, for I have something else for you.

Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country lyceum-halls, are one thing,—­and private theatricals, as they may be seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another.  Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, highbred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, acting in those love-dramas that make us young again to look upon, when real youth and beauty will play them for us.

——­Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write.  I did not see the play, though.  I knew there was a young lady in it, and that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him.  The play of course ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned form a line and take each others’ hands, as people always do after they have made up their quarrels,—­and then the curtain falls,—­if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, blushing violently.

Now, then, for my prologue.  I am not going to change my caesuras and cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better not wait to hear it.

THIS IS IT.

A Prologue?  Well, of course the ladies know;—­

I have my doubts.  No matter,—­here we go!