It was a glorious success.  We kept an eye on the picket, and when the red patch danger signal was shown, silence fell upon the room.  Forfeits ceased for a long time.  Of course we paid our watchman for his services—­paid him in pies.  He had a depraved passion for bakers’ pies, which he would not cut into portions, because he said it spoiled their flavour—­he preferred working his way through them; and that small grey face seen near the centre of a mince pie whose rim was closing gently about his ears was a sight to make a supreme justice smile.

But our evil course was almost run:  our little pie-eater, who was just a touch odd, or what people call “queer,” on Thanksgiving Day permitted himself to be treated by so many drivers of pie wagons that at night he was tearful and confused, and though he watched faithfully for the coming of Mr. Daly, while we laughingly listened to a positively criminal parody on “The Bells,” watched for and saw him in ample time, he, alas! confusedly turned his red patch the wrong way, and we, every one, came to grief and forfeiture in consequence.

Obliging people, generous, ever ready to give a helping hand.  Behind the scenes, then, our social condition, I may say, is one of good-mannered informality, of jollity tempered by respect and genuine good-fellowship.

CHAPTER XVI

THE ACTRESS AND RELIGION_

Nothing in my autobiography seems to have aroused so much comment, so much surprise, as my admission that I prayed in moments of great distress or anxiety, even when in the theatre.

One man writes that he never knew before that there was such a thing as a “praying actress.”  Poor fellow, one can’t help feeling there’s lots of other things he doesn’t know; and though I wish to break the news as gently as possible, I have to inform him that I am not a rara avis, that many actresses pray; indeed, the woods are full of us, so to speak.

One very old gentleman finds this habit of prayer “commendable and sweet,” but generally there seems to be a feeling of amazement that I should dare, as it were, to bring the profession of acting to the attention of our Lord; and yet we are authorized to pray, “Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings, and further us with thy continual help, that in all our work we may glorify thy holy name.”

It is not the work, but the motive, the spirit that actuates the work; whether embroidering stoles, sawing wood, washing dishes, or acting, if it is done honestly, for the glory of the holy name, why may one not pray for divine help?

One lady, who, poor soul, should have been born two or three hundred years ago, when her narrowness would have been more natural, is shocked, almost indignant; and though she is good enough to say she does not accuse me of “intentional sacrilege,” still, addressing a prayer to God from a theatre is nothing less in her eyes than profanation.  “For,” says she, “you know we must only seek God in His sanctuary, the church.”