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ON THE STAGE-AND OFF THE BK EP CA E OF A WOULD-BE ACTOR BY JEROME K. JEROME NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1891 PREFACE, In penning the following pages I have endeavored to be truthful. In looking back upon the scenes through which I passed, I have sought to penetrate the veil of glamour Time trails behind him as he flies, and to see things ex actly as they were to see the rough road as well as the smiling landscape, the briers and brambles as well as the green grass and the waving trees. Now, however, that my task is done, and duty no longer demands that memory should use a telescope, the mellow ing haze of distance resumes its sivay, and the Stage again appears the fair, enchanted ground that I once dreamt it. I forget the shadows, and remember but the brightness. The hardships that I suffered seem now but picturesque incidents the worry only pleasurable excite ment I think of the Stage as of a lost friend. I like to dwell upon its virtues and to ignore its faults. I wish to buiy in obliinon the bad, bold villains and the false hearted knaves who pjayed a part thereon, and to think only of the gallant heroes, the virtuous maidens, and the good old men. iv PREFACE. Let the bad pass. I met far more honest, kindly faces than deceitful ones, and I prefer to remember the former. Plenty of honest, kindly hands grasped mine, and such are the hands that I like to grip again in thought. Where the owners of those kindly hands and faces may be now I do not know. Years have passed since I last saw them, and the sea of life has drifted us farther and farther apart. But wherever on that sea they may be battling, 1 call to them from fiere a friendly greeting. Hoping that my voice may reach acrossthe waves that roll between us, I shout to them and their prof ession a hearty and sincere God Speed. CONTENTS. CHAPTER T. PAGE I DETERMINE TO BECOME AN ACTOR i CHAPTER II. I BECOME AN ACTOR - .11 CHAPTER III. THROUGH THE STAGE DOOR . ., - 25 CHAPTER IV. BEHIND THE SCENES 3I CHAPTER V. A REHEARSAL, - 40 CHAPTER VI. SCENERY AND SUPERS - 57 CHAPTER VII. DRESSING - - - . 66 CHAPTER VIII. MY FIRST DEBOO 7 6 CHAPTER IX. OF PREY - - - - 82 Vl CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. iAc3t 1 BUY A BASKET AND Go INTO THE PROVINCES - - 96 CHAPTER XL FIRST PROVINCIAL EXPERIENCES . . . - - 106 CHAPTER XII. MAD MAT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF AN OPPORTUNITY in CHAPTER XIII. LODGINGS AND LANDLADIES - - - - - - 116 CHAPTER XIV. WITH A STOCK COMPANY 125 CHAPTER XV. REVENGE 134 CHAPTER XVI, VIEWS ON ACTING -----. I4 3 CHAPTER XVII. I JOIN A FIT-UP - 153 CHAPTER XVIII. MY LAST APPEARANCE - - - - - - - 163 ON THE STAGE-AND OFF. CHAPTER L Determine to Become an Actor. HERE comes a time in every ones life when he feels he was born to be an actor. Something within him tells him that he is the coming an, and that one day he will electrify the world. Theft he burns with a desire to show them how the things done, and to draw a salary of three hun dred a week. This sort of thing generally takes a man when he is about nineteen, and lasts till he is nearly twenty. But he doesnt know this at the time. He thinks he has got hold of an inspiration all to himself a kind of solemn call, which it would be wicked to disregard and when he finds that there are obstacles in the way of his immediate appearance as Hamlet at a leading West-end theater, he is blighted. I myself caught it in the usual course. I was at the theater one evening to see Romeoand Juliet 2 ON THE STAGE AND OFF. played, when it suddenly flashed across me that that was my vocation. I thought all acting was making love in tights to pretty women, and I de termined to devote my life to it. When I com municated my heroic resolution to my friends, they reasoned with me. That is, they called me a fool and then said that they had always thought me a, sensible fellow, though that was the first I had ever heard of it. But I was not to be turned from my purpose. I commenced operations by studying the great British dramatists...