Yardsley.  Good idea.  Only don’t say yonder basement by mistake.

Enter Perkins, followed by Barlow.

Perkins.  Here’s Mr. Featherhead.  He’s rehearsing too.  As I opened the door he said, “Give me good-morrow.”

Barlow (smiling).  Yes; and Thaddeus replied, “Good-yesterday, me friend,” in tones which reminded me of Irving with bronchitis.  What’s this I hear about Henderson’s grandmother?

Yardsley.  Thrown up the part.

Barlow.  His grandmother?

Yardsley.  No—­idiot—­Henderson.  He’s thrown up his grandmother—­oh, hang it!—­you know what I mean.

Mrs. Perkins.  I hope you’re not going to net gervous, Mr. Yardsley. 
If you break down, what on earth will become of the rest of us?

Yardsley.  I hope not—­but I am.  I’m as nervous as a cat living its ninth life.  Here we are three or four hours before the performance, and no one knows whether we’ll be able to go through it or not.  My reputation as a manager is at stake.  Barlow, how are you getting along on those lines in the revelation scene?

Barlow.  Had ’em down fine on the cable-car as I came up.  Ha-ha!  People thought I was crazy, I guess.  I was so full of it I kept repeating it softly to myself all the way up; but when we got to that Fourteenth Street curve the car gave a fearful lurch and fairly shook the words “villanous viper” out of me; and as I was standing when we began the turn, and was left confronting a testy old gentleman upon whose feet I had trodden twice, at the finish, I nearly got into trouble.

Perkins (wish a laugh).  Made a scene, eh?

Barlow (joining in the laugh).  Who wouldn’t?  Each time I stepped on his foot he glared—­regular Macbeth stare—­like this:  “Is this a jagger which I see before me?” (Suits action to word.) But I never let on I saw, but continued to rehearse.  When the lurch came, however, and I toppled over on top of him, grabbed his shoulders in my hands to keep from sprawling in his lap, and hissed “villanous viper” in his face, he was inclined to resent it forcibly.

Yardsley.  I don’t blame him.  Seems to me a man of your intelligence ought to know better than to rehearse on a cable-car, anyhow, to say nothing of stepping on a man’s corns.

Barlow.  Of course I apologized; but he was a persistent old codger, and demanded an explanation of my epithet.

Perkins.  It’s a wonder he didn’t have you put off.  A man doesn’t like to be insulted even if he does ride on the cable.

Barlow.  Oh, I appeased him.  I told him I was rehearsing.  That I was an amateur actor.

Mrs. Perkins.  And of course he was satisfied.

Barlow.  Yes; at least I judge so.  He said that my confession was humiliation enough, without his announcing to the public what he thought I was; and he added, to the man next him, that he thought the public was exposed to enough danger on the cable cars without having lunatics thrust upon them at every turning.