His reverence
for the author in whose play he is to appear is boundless; he regards
him as a second Shakespeare, if not something more. His devotion to
the manager, who has given him the part, for a time approaches
deliriousness.
"_Our_ new play will be a great go!" a promoted "super" once observed
to certain of his fellows, "_I_ play a policeman! I go on in the last
scene, and handcuff Mr. Rant. I have to say, 'Murder's the charge!
Stand back!' Won't that _fetch_ the house?"
There are soldiers doomed to perish in their first battle. And there
have been "supers" who have failed to justify their advancement, and,
silenced for ever, have had to fall back into the ranks again. The
French stage has a story of a _figurant_ who ruined at once a new
tragedy and his own prospects by an unhappy _lapsus linguae_, the
result of undue haste and nervous excitement. He had but to cry aloud,
in the crisis of the drama: "_Le roi se meurt!_" He was perfect at
rehearsal; he earned the applause even of the author. A brilliant
future, as he deemed, was open to him. But at night he could only
utter, in broken tones: "_Le meurt se roi!_" and the tragic situation
was dissolved in laughter.
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