india-rubber foot-balls--and to give a reliable history of the unheard-of antics indulged in by the said fantastic legs, after their symmetry had been perfected by the means just written--how some went crooked, some sideways, and some wouldn't go at all; how some minced with short steps, like a racking pony, and others stepped along as if they had seven-league boots on; how some moved with convulsive hitches, as if they were clockwork legs, and the springs were out of order; how some worked spasmodically up and down in the same place, and didn't get along at all, as if they were legs which had struck for higher wages; and how others dashed ahead, as if they did not intend to stop until they had transported their bewildered proprietors out of sight of the audience, as if they were machine legs, with the steam turned on, and weights on the safety-valve; how some went on the stage and wouldn't go off, and how others went off and wouldn't go on, until they were coaxed on by their agonized owners, a long time after the cue came--to tell how the red fire burned green, and the blue fire would not burn at all--how the call-boy got tipsy, and was not forthcoming--how the property-man fell over the sheet-iron thunder, and stuck his head into a pot of red paint, which made him look like a modern edition of Charles the First with his head cut off--how the grave-diggers got into the grave and couldn't get out--how _Hamlet_ and _Laertes_ could hardly get in at all; and how, when they did get in, they made the gravel fly--how the wrong men came on at the wrong time, and how, as a general thing, the right men didn't ever come on--how _Guildenstern_ spoke _Ophelia's_ lines, how _Horatio_ tried to speak one of Hamlet's speeches, and danced a frantic hornpipe with rage because he couldn't think how it began, and how _Polonius_ couldn't speak at all, and so went home--how nobody could remember what Shakspeare said, and so everybody said what Shakspeare didn't say, and hadn't said, and wouldn't have said, under any circumstances--how some of the men swore, and some of the women wanted to, but postponed it, and how the butchery proceeded, with many mishaps and multitudinous mistakes, and how the audience applauded, and cheered, and laughed at the dismal tragedy, evidently considering it the liveliest farce of the season, are facts, falsehoods, and circumstances, both real and supposititious, which could not be compressed within the limits of a single volume.