Some very queer things happen behind the scenes, and even on the stage in full view of the audience--occurrences that often mar the pleasure of the play for the people in the auditorium, and raise the wrath of the performer. Anything out of the usual run of business that occurs behind the scenes throws the players off the track frequently. There is a great deal of work going on at all times, out of sight or knowledge of the audience, and a slight disturbance may be an interruption fraught with dire disaster. There are actors and actresses in the wings, often, completing the memorization of their parts--"winging" parts, as it is called--or it may be going over their lines again, if they are not confident that they have full possession of them; and to these people, of course, an interruption is a matter of the merest moment. Actors and actresses have always been credited with good memories, but even the best memory may sometimes be thrown off the track, and, indeed, sometimes is, by an untoward or startling incident. [Illustration: LIZZIE M'CALL.] Speaking of memory, reminds me that an actor once memorized an entire newspaper, when they were smaller than now, in a single night. The actor was a man named Lyon, who was playing small parts through the country. An English actor committed the contents of the London _Times_, advertisements and all, within a week, besides studying a new part for every night. The feat was accomplished on a wager. An actor in London, sat through a play, and although he had never seen it before, could repeat every line and word of it when he got home. He sat down and wrote it out, and the copy thus written was used for the performance of the play in New York. Many readers will recollect the New York couple prosecuted by the Madison Square Theatre Company for selling copies of "Hazel Kirke" to companies that had no right to play the drama. The wife, it was explained, went to the theatre, sat the play out a few times, and dictated the lines to her husband from memory. She had been an actress. There are many other remarkable instances of swift and retentive memories in the profession, but one of the most astonishing of all these feats is what is known as "winging a part," an expression I have used before in this chapter. This consists in going on the stage without having studied the lines at all, the actor carrying the book in his pocket, and pulling it out every time he gets out of sight of the audience, studying the part in the "wings" until he receives his cue to go on again. This method of going through the part continues during the performance, the actor speaking the lines to the best of his ability, and following the text as closely as possible.