The spectre was to be personated by one Thompson, a portly
jovial actor, whose views as to the treatment of the supernatural upon
the stage were of a very primitive kind. He appeared upon the scene
clad in the conventional solid armour of the theatre, with over all a
gray gauze veil, as stiff as buckram, thrown about him. Mr. Boaden
describes his horror and astonishment at the misconception. It had
been intended that the gauze, stretched on a frame, should cover a
portal of the scene, and that the figure of the spectre should be seen
dimly through it. But even then the contour of Thompson was found very
inappropriate to a phantom. It was necessary to select for the part an
actor of a slighter and taller form. At length a representative of the
ghost was found in the person of Follet, the clown, "celebrated for
his eating of carrots in the pantomimes." Follet readily accepted the
part: his height was heroic, he was a skilled posture-maker, he was
well versed in the duties of a mime. Still there was a further
difficulty. The ghost had to speak--only two words, it is true--he had
to utter the words "Perished here!" and, as the clown very frankly
admitted: "'Perished here' will be exactly the fate of the author if
I'm left to say it.
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