The subordinate actor at the wing suddenly dropped the towel and the lump of ice. He had caught his cue, and with a stiff, ungainly gait he strode upon the stage. The star had returned also, and with his reappearance the plaudits broke forth. "There he is again!" exclaimed the manager enthusiastically. "He is playing in fine form to-night,--every inch the Prince of Denmark!" Ned, too, was looking at the stage from his nook in the great man's chair behind the wing. The by-play behind the scenes had absorbed him hitherto, but he grew intensely interested when the star spoke to the actor who had lurked and listened in the wings. Hamlet seemed to be instructing him how to play a part, and in honest fact the subordinate had shown in a scene in the previous act that he stood in grievous need of such tuition. "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it." All at once was presented a strange, unexpected attraction, not set down in the bills. The four or five players to whom this is addressed are wont to receive it with bows of acquiescence, intelligent glances at each other and at their instructor to express comprehension, concurrence of opinion, and willingness. The actor who had lurked and listened had the rôle of the "first player," and was the spokesman of the party. He led these demonstrations with sufficient discretion, but when his cue was given he responded with a hoarse drunken thickness ornamented with an unmistakable hiccup. "I'se warrant yer (hic) honor!" His potations before he made his first appearance this evening had not been so deep as to intoxicate him, but he had since reinforced them heavily. He had sought to sober himself by a cold application to the head and neck before again "going on;" the heated air, however, and the excitement were fast doing away with its good effects.