rocking-chairs and mirrors. The Chorus of "William Tell" arrived a long while ahead of the stars, who, as we have seen, were dining with Doctor Vardaman. Even by the time the Chorus had finished dressing--there was only one of him, as I believe I have intimated elsewhere, a tall fair young man, who wore eye-glasses in private life and was a great admirer of Mazie's,--the rest of the cast had not yet put in an appearance. I suppose if we could have known what was going forward in the Swiss cottage we would have been much exercised; but we had no apprehensions, and no quick means of communication, if any doubts had assailed us. Few private houses had a telephone in those days, not even the Pallinders--which was, no doubt, owing in large part to the inconvenient habit prevailing among telephone-companies from the earliest times of demanding quarterly payments in advance, and removing the instrument if they were not forthcoming. So far from worrying, however, we found some pleasurable excitement in the long wait behind the scenes, and stealthy peeps through the eye-hole. The setting for "Tell" was the same throughout its two acts as I recall, a Swiss picture with Alps in the background, canvas trees and foliage to the front, and a "practicable" well with a gigantic sweep, whence they brought up pails of water and diluted the contents of _Tell's_ milk-cans--he was a dairyman in the burlesque; this was the _Schactenthal Waterfall_, and was the subject of many noble apostrophes from all the actors; even _Gessler_ and _Jemmy_ had something to say about it. There was a trap-door in the floor of the stage and a servant stood to hand up buckets as they were needed. "Most people," the Chorus remarked to me, "would have had to put up a lot of money for all this. The colonel got a carpenter from the Grand Opera House, not the head man, I suppose, but some second-best fellow they could spare, to plan and oversee it all, so that everything would be safe. That's the man over there now; he told me the bill for the lumber alone would be thirty-five or forty dollars--and it's good for nothing but kindling-wood after to-night, you know." We were sitting together on a green baise-covered mound, very much in the way, doubtless, as we watched the men getting things in position. I had no business to be there at all, but I was dressed and ready for my part, and so alive with curiosity and excitement, I could no more stay in one place sedately than a young kitten or puppy. The stolid professionals at work on the scenery endured our presence on the principle, perhaps, that bids us to suffer fools kindly.