The old woman of the company is an elderly matronly female, who may be found hovering in the wings of every theatre. She is nobody's mother in particular, but talks in a motherly way to all, and exercises a special supervision over the female members of the company. In strange contrast to her is the call-boy, a mischievous devil-may-care young fellow, who calls Booth "Ed," Bernhardt "Sallie," and has familiar appellations for the most prominent and dignified people in the profession. It is his business to call performers from the green-room in time for them to take their "cue" for going on the stage, and this is about all he has to do except to make trouble, to learn secrets that he whispers about, and to become an impish nuisance revelling in more fun and freedom than anybody else behind the scenes. Aimee took a liking to one of these little gentlemen once and fed him cigarettes, and let him tell her lies _ad libitum_. She said she liked him because he was such "a charming little beast." Alice Oates, of flagrant fame, allowed one of them out West to get into her good graces, and repented it, when she found that he disappeared suddenly one day with a lot of her jewels. The call-boy comes last in the list of attaches, but he is not at all least. If you believe all he tells you, like the usher, you will think him a great man, for he often boasts of playing poker with John McCullough, of taking Lotta out for a drive, or of rolling ten-pins with Salvini or some equally illustrious representative of the highest dramatic art. A call-boy gets about $10 a week, and in five cases out of ten he isn't worth ten cents. [Illustration: THE ÆSTHETIC DRAMA.] CHAPTER XIV. STAGE-STRUCK. George McManus, treasurer of the Grand Opera House, St. Louis, in addition to being a good story-teller, is as fond of a practical joke as he is of three meals a day. During the season of 1880-81 George was at the box-office window, one day, looking out at the Dutch lager beer saloon across the street, and wondering why it was that people were so fond of "schooners," when a tall, thin, melancholy, Hamlet-like young fellow, with the air and clothes of rusticity, stalked slowly into the vestibule and up to the box-office. "Well, sir," said George, as the young man got in front of the window and fixed his elbows on the sill. "I want to be an actor," the young man began; "I kem here from Cahokia, a small place you may have heern about, and I'd like to go on the stage and play somethin' or other." "Oh," answered George, smiling, "if that's all you want I can fix you. When do you want to begin?" "I am ready to start in right neow," was the reply. "I told the old folks when I left the house last night that they needn't expect to see me ag'in 'til my name wuz on the walls an' the sides o' houses in letters more'n a yard long, an' I'm goin' to do it or die."