We played all through the principal towns, and then we took to bush-whacking, setting up one or two night stands in places rarely visited by a theatrical company; and I believe that the business done in these small places was almost always highly satisfactory from a monetary point of view. Some of the villages we visited--for they were nothing more--yielded fuller houses and realised better profits than we found always in the capitals. I remember that we played once in a schoolroom built of corrugated iron and without a vestige of scenery. We put on 'Chums;' and the settler's parlour, the forest scene, and the outer view of the Otago homestead were each and all represented with the help of a green baize cloth, which hung at the rear and on either side of the stage, three upturned petroleum tins, three chairs, a tub, and a little oblong deal table with red legs. We had a stage space of about four yards by three. I played Square Jack Furlong; and in the last act my revolver hung fire and exploded a second or two too late, when it was unfortunately and accidentally levelled at the back of the leading man's head. The waxen pellet which packed the powder hit him smartly on the philoprogenitive bump, and he swore audibly. A revolver is always a nuisance on the stage and a terror to the actor who has to use it. You may buy the best weapon in the trade, you may have your cartridges made with the utmost care; but there will always be a chance of its missing fire. You may have a double in the wings, of course, but even that provides no surety. I have known my own revolver and the double refuse duty at the same instant, and have faced the moaned inquiry of the leading man, who ought to have been stretched out in apparent death throes, 'What the devil's going to happen now?' To make matters better, when I had thrown away the useless weapon with an improvised execration and was about to hurl myself upon the virtuous victim, the pistol in the wings obeyed the pressure of the prompter's finger, and the leading man dropped to a shot from nowhere, to the great mystification of the audience.