"He's dead right. Speakin' of those days," added Smith, "I remember well the times gone by in the old Bowery Theatre on certain gay and festive occasions to have seen as many as seventeen glasses of good old Monongahela whisky set up in the green-room and not a man took water when called upon to do his duty. They have no green-rooms any more. But let me tell you that's where the managers of the present day take their cues from, for those after-performance first-night stage suppers that are frequently given for the entertainment of the principal players, a few select friends, and a big bunch of newspaper scribes. On the stage, mind you, not in the green-room, for the green-room is now a thing of the past." "Were you in the old Bowery shop then?" inquired Handy. "Was I? What! Well, I should smile! You know me. Say, you may talk of the realistic drama of these degenerate days--why, they aren't one, two, nine with the shows of days gone by. Oh, you may laugh about stage realism and chin about real race-horses in racing scenes, and real society women to play real ladies, real burglars to crack unreal property safes, and real prize-fighters to do their prize-fighting fakes, in addition to attempting to act, but let me tell you fellows that the managers who are gone never missed a trick when they had to do a realistic stunt." "Well, you ought to know, Smith," said Handy. "Why, hang it, man alive! they did everything in the show business as good then as they do now; and what's more, they didn't have to import actors from abroad nor send over to the other side for stage managers to teach the company how to act. Was I in the old Bowery in them days? Was I? Sure, Mike! I went in there as a call-boy. Let me see--when? Oh, yes, I remember. It was the season that 'The Cataract of the Ganges' was brought out. Yes, sir, and they gave the 'Cataract' with real water, too, and make no bloomin' error about it either!" "Oh, come, come there, old man! Draw it mild. Don't pile it on too thick," interposed the doubting Thomas of the party and the most juvenile member of the troupe. "We can't stand all that. We are willing to swallow the whisky in the green-room, but water on the stage--oh, no! that's a little too much of a good thing. Why, my gentle romancer, the Croton water pipes weren't laid in the city in them days. Then how the mischief could they give the waterfall scene? With buckets, tubs, or with a pump--which? or with all three combined?" For a moment the speaker was nonplussed for an answer. He felt embarrassed, and looked so. He was about to make reply when another of the company who, by the way, was an old-timer like himself, boldly came to the rescue. "He's right," boldly asserted the new contributor to the conversation, "dead right. I remember the stunt myself."