Finally the curtain went up amid the uproarious applause of the assembled multitude, interrupted only by a small boy in the gallery, who hissed like a whole flock of enraged wild-geese, having been stationed there especially for the performance of this sibilant duty by an avenging washerwoman, to whom one of the amateurs owed four and sixpence; his dissenting voice was, however, soon hushed by the police, who put him out, and didn't give him his money back, after which the exhibition proceeded. To give a full description of one half of the ridiculous performances indulged in by these deluded persons--to tell of the new readings which they gave, and the old readings which they didn't give--to relate how carefully they avoided the traps, and with what commendable caution they kept away from the footlights--to give an idea of the bedlamitish ingenuity they had displayed in the selection of wardrobe, how each one had put on the most inappropriate articles imaginable, and how they could not have been more incongruously attired if they had been all dressed in sheep's grey breeches and straw hats--to dilate upon the disasters which befell the said wardrobe, how the tunics caught in the wings, and the shoulder-cloaks got singed by the side-lights; how the ladies' trains were in everybody's way, and their feathers in everybody's eyes--how, in their confusion, when they painted their faces, they put the wrong colors in the wrong places, and some of them went on with white cheeks, chalked lips, and eyebrows colored a bright vermilion--how the gilt crowns got bent and battered until they looked like ancient milk-pans with the bottoms melted out--how the flannel ermine on the regal calico robes got greasy, and looked like tripe--how the wax pearls melted and the glass ones broke--how the "supes" painted their whiskers uneven, and got their wigs on wrong side before--how some of them couldn't get their armor on at all, but how one enterprising individual, having succeeded to his satisfaction, came on to deliver a message, with his sandals in his hand, his helmet on one foot, his breast-plate on the other, and his leg-pieces strapped on his shoulders--to tell how the _Ghost_ got chilly and played the last scene in an overcoat, and proved that he was a substantial Native American Ghost, by making two extemporaneous speeches, in excellent English, to the audience--to do full justice to the miscellaneous assortment of _legs_, then and there congregated, and relate how some were bow-legs, and some were shingle-legs, some were broomstick-legs, some were wiry legs, and some were shoulder-of-mutton legs--to give an accurate relation of the various expedients resorted to, to remedy the most noticeable defects in those legs, and state that some were padded on the sides, and some at the ankles, and how, in not a few instances, the padding slipped away from its original position, thereby putting the calves on the shins, and causing the knees to resemble deformed