At the tenth representation, my dramatic career was brought to a close by an unfortunate circumstance.  We were playing the drama of “William Tell, the Hero of Switzerland.”  Of course I was William Tell, in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted to act that character himself.  I wouldn’t let him, so he withdrew from the company, taking the only bow and arrow we had.  I made a cross-bow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him.  We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son’s head.  Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son.  To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb’s face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel.  I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek fairly towards me.

I can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without flinching, waiting for me to perform my great feat.  I raised the crossbow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothes-pin.  I raised the cross-bow, I repeat.  Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb’s mouth, which happened to be open at the time, and destroyed my aim.

I shall never be able to banish that awful moment from my memory.  Pepper’s roar, expressive of astonishment, indignation, and pain, is still ringing in my cars.  I looked upon him as a corpse, and, glancing not far into the dreary future, pictured myself led forth to execution in the presence of the very same spectators then assembled.

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt; but Grandfather Nutter, appearing in the midst of the confusion (attracted by the howls of young Tell), issued an injunction against all theatricals thereafter, and the place was closed; not, however, without a farewell speech from me, in which I said that this would have been the proudest moment of my life if I hadn’t hit Pepper Whitcomb in the mouth.  Whereupon the audience (assisted, I am glad to state, by Pepper) cried “Hear!  Hear!” I then attributed the accident to Pepper himself, whose mouth, being open at the instant I fired, acted upon the arrow much after the fashion of a whirlpool, and drew in the fatal shaft.  I was about to explain how a comparatively small maelstrom could suck in the largest ship, when the curtain fell of its own accord, amid the shouts of the audience.

This was my last appearance on any stage.  It was some time, though, before I heard the end of the William Tell business.  Malicious little boys who had not been allowed to buy tickets to my theatre used to cry out after me in the street,

     “‘Who killed Cock Robin?’
     ‘I,’ said the sparrer,
     ’With my bow and arrer,
     I killed Cock Robin!’”