Down in front, right under the glow of the foot-lights, the bald head of the leader of the orchestra shines. Often he is interesting, but sometimes, especially among the leaders for combinations on the road, he has a life history that compels now tears and now again laughter. When he is on the road he may have a wife or daughter in the company, and if he has neither he is bound to look lovingly upon some of the fair talent whose toes twinkle, or voices ripple in song to the tune of his waving baton, and he will smile out through his gold-rimmed spectacles upon his favorite even while she is courting the favor of the audience, or, perhaps, while she is trying to mash some beefy blonde in the front rows of the parquette. Jealousy often takes possession of the breast of the orchestra leader. It may be that he will find out that the wife he has done everything for to make famous has younger and handsomer lovers, from whose glowing presence she comes to her musical lord cold as a Christmas morning with eighteen inches of ice on pond and river; or it may be that the favorite of the foot-lights whom he adores has found another favorite in the audience; then there is war, and sometimes the orchestra is left without its leader and a story of unrequited love is told in a coroner's inquest held upon a body found floating in a pool, or hanging from a transom in the room of some hotel. To leave the pathetic and get down to solid facts it may be stated that the leader of an orchestra is paid from $75 to $100 a week, and has from a dozen to sixteen musicians whose salaries range from $18 to $30 a week. Again returning to the bosom of the stage--to the sacred precincts beyond the foot-lights--we encounter the stage manager. Every travelling company has its own employee who directs and runs the stage business, and notwithstanding the abolition of stock companies, several theatres retain stage managers of their own who work in conjunction with the company's, looking after the setting of scenery, bossing the stage hands, etc. The stage manager may be an actor, or he may not, but he must be a man of theatrical training, and thoroughly conversant with all the requirements of the stage. In travelling combinations he usually plays a minor part, and, although he may not be able to act as well as his brethren of the play, he must possess the requisite artistic knowledge to point out and dictate what all shall do. He supervises rehearsals; casts plays,--that is, assigns to each performer his character; and he looks after the mounting of plays and the costuming, giving the scenic artist the period to which the play belongs, and imparting the same information to the costumers so that there may be no anachronism in the representation on the stage. [Illustration: HELPING THE SCENE PAINTER.]