Besides, it was of a conical form, and as I looked upon it I thought what an advantage it would have been to me in my younger days if I had had some such thing in the barn-yard, over which to break pumpkins for the cattle. I am certain a pumpkin or squash brought down upon such an object with well-centred precision, would fly into as many fragments as the Turkish Empire. I was not the only person whose attention was arrested by that marvelous development. If a diamond the size of a rutabaga had suddenly flashed, the audience would scarcely have turned with greater haste to contemplate its beauties than they did to regard that head the instant the hat was removed. It had such a smooth and polished surface that the actors, as they passed back and forth upon the stage, were mirrored out upon it in Liliputian proportions. The large globe light was reflected so perfectly upon that glossy scalp that it shed a positive light to remote corners of the auditorium; and a person would look first at the head, then up at the globe, and then down at the head again, and _then_ hardly be prepared to decide from which object the original rays of light proceeded. The musician had one original “turn” which afforded me much amusement. At the commencement of a tune he would sit facing the stage, which was proper enough; but as he proceeded he would turn by degrees until he was sitting full face to the audience. The gods in the gallery seemed to consider it their especial privilege to pelt his head with peanuts; and when one would happen to hit—which was quite often—it would bound and skip from the polished object in a manner that would invariably bring down the house. Standing as it did in bold relief from the dark panel-work and drapery behind, it was a most excellent and inviting mark. Man though I am, with the sobering cares of life closing gloomily around me, I actually regretted I couldn’t try a shot at the old codger’s head myself. It has been said “The king of Shadows loves a shining mark.” If this is so, how that musician managed to escape the arrows so long is more than I can understand. For many a year he certainly has presented a target worthy the whole archery of the realm of Death. The evening’s entertainment was made up of selections from Shakespeare’s tragedies, “Macbeth,” and “Othello.” [Illustration: MACBETH.]