Many stories are extant as to performances being interrupted by the entry of innocent messengers bringing to the players, in the presence of the audience, refreshments they had designed to consume behind the scenes, or sheltered from observation between the wings.  Thus it is told of one Walls, who was the prompter in a Scottish theatre, and occasionally appeared in minor parts, that he once directed a maid-of-all-work, employed in the wardrobe department of the theatre, to bring him a gill of whisky.  The night was wet, so the girl, not caring to go out, intrusted the commission to a little boy who happened to be standing by.  The play was “Othello,” and Walls played the Duke.  The scene of the senate was in course of representation.  Brabantio had just stated: 

                            My particular grief
    Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature,
    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
    And it is still itself—­

and the Duke, obedient to his cue, had inquired: 

Why, what’s the matter?

when the little boy appeared upon the stage, bearing a pewter measure, and explained:  “It’s just the whisky, Mr. Walls; and I couldna git ony at fourpence, so yer awn the landlord a penny:  and he says it’s time you was payin’ what’s doon i’ the book.”  The senate broke up amidst the uproarious laughter of the audience.

Upon our early stage a kind of biscuit—­a “marchpane”—­was consumed by the players when they required to eat upon the stage.  In “Romeo and Juliet” one of the servants says:  “Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane.”  In Marston’s “What you Will” occurs the passage: 

    Now work the cooks, the pastry sweats with slaves,
    The marchpanes glitter.

And in Brome’s “City Wit” Mrs. Pyannet tells Toby Sneakup:  “You have your kickshaws, your players’ marchpanes—­all show and no meat.”

Real macaroni in “Masaniello,” and real champagne in “Don Giovanni,” in order that Leporello may have opportunities for “comic business” in the supper scene, are demanded by the customs of the operatic stage.  Realism generally, indeed, is greatly affected in the modern theatre.  The audiences of to-day require not merely that real water shall be seen to flow from a pump, or to form a cataract, but that real wine shall proceed from real bottles, and be fairly swallowed by the performers.  In Paris, a complaint was recently made that, in a scene representing an entertainment in modern fashionable society, the champagne supplied was only of a second-rate quality.  Through powerful opera-glasses the bottle labels could be read, and the management’s sacrifice of truthfulness to economy was severely criticised.  The audience resented the introduction of the cheaper liquor as though they had themselves been constrained to drink it.