Imagine, for instance, an actor like John McCullough refusing to approach a theatre except by one route (the one he first takes, no matter how roundabout) from night to night, for fear of breaking the charm of success. Imagine, too, a lot of other trifling things that beset him--signs, omens and the like. If he stumbles when he first enters a scene it is a sign of good luck. If he receives faint applause in the first scene he is sure to succeed, amid thunderous plaudits, in the last; if Forrest's sword, used in the Gladiator, becomes dim by damp air or other cause, it is a sign of lack of fervor in the audience of the evening, while, on the contrary an extraordinary brightness of the weapon is a sure sign of great success. If a negro should cross his path while he is on his way to a performance, that is a never-failing omen of a prosperous engagement, while to encounter a cross-eyed woman (not a man, for strabismus in that sort of creature does not affect John, probably because it is only the woman he looks at), is a sure sign if not of failure, at least of annoyance to himself and coldness on the part of his audience. The Macbeth music is, of course, his great bugbear, as it is with all actors. [Illustration: THE LATE VENIE CLANCIE.] No success could attend any of his performances if any one were to hum or whistle the witches' chorus in the wings or the dressing-rooms. Any poor, inexperienced devil who might try it would find John, and, in fact, all the company, wrestling with him, and himself lying in the gutter at the back door before he had warbled through two bars of the fatal music. This is, in the opinion of every actor, a sure invocation of disaster. Under the malign influence of this melodic devilishness either the theatre will be burned down (for, if we are to believe the actors and stage tradition, every theatre that was ever burned in this country was put under the spell of fire by some singer or whistler of the witches' chorus), or salaries will not be paid, or the manager will bring his season to an early and disastrous end. Something ill is sure to happen if the Macbeth music is heard, and John shares that belief in common with even the humblest Roman of them all who parades his scraggy shanks nightly in ridiculous contrast with the heroic legs of the tragedian. John T. Raymond, while believing faithfully in all the regular signs and omens of the stage, has his own special claims to "hog 'em," using the stage vernacular. He has only one suit of clothes for _Colonel Sellers_, and would not have any other under any circumstances. It would change his luck from good to bad.