The porter came along with a lantern, and we looked at the woman with a hare lip and a bass voice, and it was not a woman at all, but a Detroit drummer for a stove house. Finding that we were not a midnight assassin, nor a woman, the drummer let go of the small of our back, and we got into our own berth; but it was a narrow escape; the woman with the hare lip was in the upper berth. We found that out in the morning when she talked through her nose at the porter about fetching a step ladder for her to climb down on. PARALYSIS IN A THEATRE Inasmuch as there seems to be no other business before the house, we desire, Mr. Speaker, to arise to a personal explanation. There was something occurred at the Opera House, the last night that the Rice Surprise Party played “Revels,” that placed us in a wrong position before the public. Mr. Gunning, the scene painter, had prided himself that the transformation scene that he had fixed up for the play was about as nice as could be, and as we confessed that we had only got an imperfect view of it, the night before, from one side of the house, he insisted that we take a seat right in front of the stage, in the parquette, and get a good view of it. There were a good many legs in the show, and we didn't want to sit right down in front all the evening, so we compromised the matter by agreeing to sit in the dress circle until it was about time for the transformation scene, and then, after the giddy girls had all been behind the scenes, we would go down and take a front seat, right back of the orchestra, and take in the transformation scene. Well, they had got through with the high kicking, and all gone off, except one girl, a gipsy, who was going to sing a song, and then a bell would ring and the whole stage effects would change as if by magic. When she had got to the end of her song and had waltzed off to the left, we got up and walked down in front, and took one of a whole row of vacant seats, put on our spectacles, and were ready. Do you know, every cuss in that audience saw us go down there? They all thought we had gone there to be nearer the dizzy tights, and they began to clap their hands and cheer. We think Chapin, the lawyer, who doesn't like us very well, started it, and every kid in the gallery took it up, and the house fairly rung with applause at the sight of our bald head well down in front. We never felt so mean since we quit stealing sheep. The crowd laughed and hi-hi'd, and the stage manager took the applause for an _encore_, and ordered the girl to go out and sing some more. She knew better, knew they were guying the bald-headed man in front, and all the troupe knew it, and the girls put their heads out from the wings and laughed; but the girl came out and sung again. If she didn't wink at us when she came out, then we don't know what a wink is, and we have been around some, too.