"Get off, you brute!" he growled, giving the animal a kick. But Jack was too highly trained to heed such an admonition, having learned beforehand that the kicking was not so bad as the flogging he would get for not performing his part correctly. "Doan't tha' kick poor Jack," called out a rough voice, "give un the word." "Ay, ay, give un the word," echoed half-a-dozen voices. The manager knew better than to disregard the advice of his patrons, and ground out between his teeth, "Here's a policeman coming." At that "open Sesame" Jack was up and off like a shot. It must have been one of the finest bits of burlesque to have seen that black-ringlet-wigged, sallow, dyspeptic, tragic-looking individual, repeating the clown's formula over a mangy cur. The failure or forgetfulness of stage properties is frequently a source of ludicrous incidents. People are often killed by pistols that will not fire, or stabbed with the butt ends. In some play an actor has to seize a dagger from a table and stab his rival. One night the dagger was forgotten and no substitute was there, _except a candle_, which the excited actor wrenched from the candlestick, and madly plunged _at_ his opponent's breast; but it effected its purpose, for the victim expired in strong convulsions. It is strange how seldom the audience perceive such _contretemps_, or notice the extraordinary and ludicrous slips of the tongue that are so frequent upon the stage. A playbill is not always the most truth-telling publication in the world. Managers, driven to their wits' ends to draw a sluggish public, often announce entertainments which they have no means of producing properly, or even at all, and have to exercise an equal amount of ingenuity to find substitutes, or satisfy a deluded audience. Looking through some manuscript letters of R. B. Peake's the other day, I came across a capital story of Bunn. While he was manager of the Birmingham Theatre, Power, the celebrated Irish comedian, made a starring engagement with him. It was about the time that the dramatic version of Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein"--done, I believe, by Peake himself--was making a great sensation, and Power announced it for his benefit, playing "the Monster" himself. The manager, however, refused to spend a penny upon the production. "You must do with what you can find in the theatre," he said. There was only one difficulty. In the last scene Frankenstein is buried beneath an avalanche, and among the stage scenery of the Theatre Royal, Birmingham, there was nothing resembling an avalanche to be found, and the AVALANCHE was the one prodigious line in the playbill. Power was continually urging this difficulty, but Bunn always eluded it with, "Oh, we shall find something or other." At length it came to the day of performance, and the problem had not yet been solved. "Well, we shall have to change the piece," said Power. "Pooh, pooh! nonsense!" answered the manager.