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270 to the low comedian to sit down and make himself comfortable. Facile finds the "imitations" in the third act seem to make no impression, which is not to be wondered at, considering that he reads them "off the reel," without any modification of voice at all. At length, very much to his own surprise, he finds himself at the last page—which is always a tremendously long page to read, you never seem to get to the bottom of it,—and, with his heart thumping away in his mouth, he pronounces the word "curtain," and closes the manuscript with, "There, that's over!" and proceeds at once to talk, with great volubility, about the sort of day that it is—the bad business they've been doing at the "Folly," or the horrible report that Mrs. Miggleton, the wife of Miggleton, the first surgeon of the day, never "shows" in society, because her husband has, at different times and in the interest of science, cut away so much of her, by way of experiment, that only the vital portions are left—about anything, in short, except the piece he has just been reading. The stage-manager distributes the "parts," and the author hurries away—in order to avoid that row with Miss Smith—after appointing a day and hour for "comparing parts."

In the course of this process—a very dismal one indeed—the members of the company who are engaged in the piece endeavour to decipher the parts and to ascertain the context. The copyist's errors are corrected, and everyone begins to have some idea of his or her position with reference to the other persons engaged. It is usually a long and tedious process, and eminently calculated to reduce Facile's self-esteem to vanishing