“Ha! what are these?  Sure, hangmen, That come to bind my hands, and then to drag me Before the judgment-seat:  now they are new shapes, And do appear like Furies!”

The words of Sir Giles Overreach, one of the parts I had studied during my histrionic acces, were not at all inappropriate to the state of mind in which, with knee-joints slipping from under me, I now made my way up-stairs.  Having reached the upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the audience through the windows, before entering the little retiring-room behind the stage.  With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on.  To think, that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that moment comfortably at home, reading the evening paper!  Nay, were it not better to be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore, toiling as a slave under a tropic sun, than here, with a gaping audience waiting to devour me with their eyes and ears?

The first thing I did, on reaching the retiring-room, was to give way to a fearful fascination and take another peep at the audience from behind a curtain at the side-entrance.  I then looked at my watch.  Twenty minutes to eight!  People were pouring in, notwithstanding the inclement weather.  The hall was nearly crowded already.  One familiar face after another was recognized.  Surely everybody I know is present.

Another look at my watch.  Quarter to eight!  Suddenly the frantic thought occurred to me, What if I have lost my manuscript?  Where did I put it?  ’Tis in none of my pockets!  Good gracious!  Has any one seen my manuscript?  Come, Jerome, no fooling at a time like this!  Where have you hidden it?  What!  You know nothing about it? Hunt for it, then!  Wouldn’t it be a charming scrape, if I couldn’t find my lecture?  Isn’t this it, in the drawer?  Oh, yes!  I must have put it there unconsciously.

Being in a high state of perspiration, and wiping my forehead incessantly, I disarrange my hair.  Where’s that brush?  No one can tell.  Agony!  Where’s the brush?  Here on the floor.  Oh, yes!  There!  What a blaze my cheeks are in!  The audience will think they are flushed with Bourbon.  No matter.  That manuscript has disappeared again.  Confusion!  Where is it?  Here in your overcoat-pocket.  All right.

Five minutes to eight.  Grasping the scroll, I rush to the side-entrance.  The audience begin to manifest their impatience by applause.  Suddenly I hear the bell of the Old South Church strike eight.  The last vibration passes like an ice-bolt through my heart.  Wrought up to desperation, I thrust aside the curtain.  This gives a portion of the audience a sight of me, and I hear some one exclaim, “There he is!” Horrible exposure!  I dodge back out of view, as if to escape the discharge of a battery.  A round of impatient applause rouses me.  I count three, and precipitate myself forward to the centre of the stage.