" During this speech, I am told, the
character snarled continuously and tried to bite his captors. At this
the woman, who had so deplorably unsexed herself for the character of
Mr. Belknap-Jackson as he had played Oswald, approached the prisoner
and smartly drew forth a handful of his beard which she stuffed into a
pipe and proceeded to smoke, after which they pretended that the play
went on. But no more than a few speeches had been uttered when the
supposed Cousin Egbert eluded his captors and, emitting a loud shriek
of horror, leaped headlong through the window at the back of the
stage, his disappearance being followed by the sounds of breaking
glass as he was supposed to fall to the street below.
"How lovely!" exclaimed the mimic Oswald. "Perhaps he has broken both
his legs so he can't run off any more," at which the fellow Hobbs
remarked in his affected tones: "That sort of thing would never do
with us."
This I learned aroused much laughter, the idea being that the remark
had been one which I am supposed to make in private life, though I
dare say I have never uttered anything remotely like it.
"The fellow is quite impossible," continued the spurious Oswald, with
a doubtless rather clever imitation of Mr. Belknap-Jackson's manner.
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