The use of candles involved the employment of candle-snuffers, who came on at certain pauses in the performance to tend and rectify the lighting of the stage. Goldsmith's Strolling Player narrates how he commenced his theatrical career in this humble capacity: "I snuffed the candles; and let me tell you, that without a candle-snuffer the piece would lose half its embellishment." The illness of one of the actors necessitated the pressing of the candle-snuffer into the company of players. "I learnt my part," he continues, "with astonishing rapidity, and bade adieu to snuffing candles ever after. I found that nature had designed me for more noble employment, and I was resolved to take her when in the humour." But the duties of a candle-snuffer, if not very honourable, were somewhat arduous. It was the custom of the audience, especially among those frequenting the galleries, to regard him as a butt, with whom to amuse themselves during the pauses between the acts. Something of this habit is yet extant. Even nowadays the appearance of a servant on the stage for the necessary purposes of the performance--to carry chairs on or off, to spread or remove a carpet, &c.--is frequently the signal for cries of derision from the gallery. Of old the audience proceeded to greater extremities--even to hurling missiles of various kinds at the unfortunate candle-snuffer. In Foote's comedy of "The Minor," Shift, one of the characters, describes the changing scenes of his life. From a linkboy outside a travelling theatre he was promoted to employment within. "I did the honours of the barn," he says, "by sweeping the stage and clipping the candles. Here my skill and address were so conspicuous that it procured me the same office the ensuing winter, at Drury Lane, where I acquired intrepidity, the crown of all my virtues.... For I think, sir, he that dares stand the shot of the gallery, in lighting, snuffing, and sweeping, the first night of a new play, may bid defiance to the pillory with all its customary compliments.... But an unlucky crab-apple applied to my right eye by a patriot gingerbread baker from the Borough, who would not suffer three dancers from Switzerland because he hated the French, forced me to a precipitate retreat."