At an American theatre, an actor once took his benefit, and selected as the play for the occasion, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. The company being small, he found it necessary not only to subject several of the incidental characters to being doubled—that is, one actor to sustain two different characters in the same piece, rapidly changing his costume from one to the other as occasion requires—but he also accepted a double himself. His was that of Sambo with St Clair. St Clair appears in one act, and Sambo in the next. Having won considerable honours as the first individual, the actor, directly the curtain had descended, hurried away to his dressing-room to prepare in all haste his toilet and costume for Sambo. His face and hands had of course to be blacked; and in the midst of this operation of applying the burnt cork, the prompter entered his room to announce that the audience were uproarious for him to appear before the curtain. ‘But I can’t,’ he exclaimed; ‘it is impossible; I’m just making up for Sambo!’ Nothing, however, would satisfy his patrons short of responding to his call; so boisterously demanded, that, without his compliance, the performance could not possibly proceed. At length our hero made his appearance. But the audience were scarcely prepared to receive him in his altered person, and, failing to recognise the metamorphosed St Clair in the half-made-up Sambo, they shouted: ‘Go away! Who sent for you?’ Floral offerings are, of course, pleasantly associated with artistes’ benefits, and long may they so continue. The Emperor Nero, it is said, always provided the Roman spectators with the thousand-and-one bouquets which were thrown at his feet when he occupied the stage. But bouquets _voluntarily_ offered are worthy to be prized very highly. Not very long ago, Mr Edward Terry, when taking his leave of an Irish audience, was honoured with the reception of a beautiful floral wreath, which must have been infinitely more acceptable than that wreath of _immortelles_ which some insulting ruffian cast at the feet of Mademoiselle Favart, at a French theatre, a few years ago, in order to indicate that her age had placed her beyond the power of playing youthful parts. Had she been composed of the same metal as was the actor in the following example, she would have enjoyed the opportunity presented of paying the wretch back in his own coin. The story may be accepted as true.