It was an awful moment:  if he refused to come, if he turned tail and ran, all was over; the audience would roar.

“Puss—­Puss!” I pleaded.  Thomas looked hard at me, hesitated, stretched out his neck, and working his whiskers nervously, sniffed at my hand.

“Puss—­Puss!” I gasped out once more, and lo! he gave a little “meow,” and walking over to me, arched his back amicably, and rubbed his dingy old body against my knee.  In a moment my arms were about him, my cheek on his wicked old head, and the applause that broke forth from the audience was as balm of Gilead to my distress and mortification.  Then I called for Nannine, and when she came on, I said to her, “Take him downstairs, Nannine, he grows too heavy a pet for me these days,” and she lifted and carried Sir Thomas from the stage, and so I got out of the scrape without sacrificing my character as a sick woman.

My manager, Mr. John P. Smith, who was a wag, and who would willingly give up his dinner, which he loved, for a joke, which he loved better, was the next day questioned about this incident.  One gentleman, a music dealer, said to him:  “Mr. Smith, I wish you to settle a question for me.  My wife and I are at variance.  We saw ‘Camille’ last night, and my wife, who has seen it several times in New York, insisted that that beautiful little cat-scene belongs to the play and is always done; while I am sure I never saw it before, and several of my customers agree with me, one lady declaring it to have been an accident.  Will you kindly set us right?”

“Certainly,” heartily replied Mr. Smith; “your wife is quite right, the cat scene is always done.  It is a great favourite with Miss Morris, and she hauls that cat all over the country with her, ugly as he is, just because he’s such a good actor.”

CHAPTER IX

“ALIXE.”  THE TRAGEDY OF THE GOOSE GREASE_

During the run of “Alixe,” at Daly’s Theatre, I had suffered from a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs, and before I was well the doctor was simply horrified to learn that Mr. Daly had commanded me to play at the Saturday performance, saying that if the work made me worse, the doctor would have all day Sunday to treat me in.  He really seemed to think that using a carriage did away with all possible danger in passing from a warm room, through icy streets, to a draughty theatre.  But certain lesions that I carry about with me are proofs of his error.  However, I dared not risk losing my engagement, so I obeyed.  My chest, which had been blistered and poulticed during my illness, was excruciatingly tender and very sensitive to cold; and the doctor, desiring to heal, and at the same time to protect it from chill, to my unspeakable mortification anointed me lavishly with goose grease and swathed me in flannel and cotton wadding.