Hamlet, striving to maintain his composure and self-possession in the presence of the audience, addressed the second long exhortation chiefly to the others. He could not have devised a worse expedient. The "first player," eager to assert his precedence among his fellows, and to impress the star with the conviction that he was perfectly sober and reliable, gave such prominence to his acquiescent dumb show that it became extravagant and uncouth, and before the lines of the admonition were concluded he was bowing about the stage like a clown. There was a vague, suppressed titter in the parquet. A sharp, sibilant hiss swept down from the gallery. The other mock players, forgetting their appropriate pantomime, stood as still as if stricken into stone. The equilibrium of the great star was fairly shaken. There was a quiver singularly like stage fright in those clear melodious tones, but he gallantly persisted to the end, and gave the "first player" his cue. "Reformed!" exclaimed the "first player" automatically,--he had forgotten every word of his lines but this. "We've reformed," he reiterated, "an'--an'--we ain't never goin' ter do it no more," he declared, leering facetiously at the audience. "Come off! Come off!" insisted the frenzied stage manager, in a sepulchral undertone from behind the scenes. But the sodden idiot advanced to the foot-lights beyond the reach of the sheltering curtain which would fain have gathered him in. The star bowed with dignity and retired, and the "first player" began his explanation to the audience amidst a storm of hisses. "Gen'elmen an' lad'es,--I mean _lad'es_ an' gen'elmen," the gallant soul corrected himself,--"want ter make a little speege,--I forgot lines--(hic) prompter throws me the word,--but (hic) he's got no teeth, for I can't make him out,--go look at book,--boss is a-callin' me now,--make it all right,--(hic)--be back d'rec'ly." The bell jangled eloquently for the curtain to fall. "Let it down on him,--don't care if it kills him!" was heard in the frantic managerial tones from the wings. The characteristically good-natured American audience burst into roars of laughter, and the curtain came down amidst a storm of sarcastic applause before, and not upon, the gravely bowing "first player." The great star was with some difficulty beguiled into going on with the play. The uproarious audience was quieted--nay, melted--by the sight of the managerial distress and the terms of the heart-broken apology which was offered. The curtain was rung up; the performance recommenced at the entrance of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern; and these preliminaries arranged, the stage manager, the manager of the theatre, his friend of the skeleton-like contour, the leader of the orchestra, a number of the minor members of the company, and a strong detachment of self-constituted "bosses" went in a different spirit to reckon with the author of all this woe.