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Updated: May 28, 2025
And, as I have said, had it not been for the presence in that audience of two American reporters nobody would have known what all the world now knows nobody would have read of the marvellous feats of bareback riding indulged in by the King of Finland nobody would have read how Sir Peter Grebe steered his mount safely past the footlights only to come to grief over the prompter's box.
Ah! if the journalists, the dandies, and some few fair Parisians among the audience wondered how that German with the tragical countenance had cropped up on a first night to occupy a side box all to himself when fashionable Paris filled the house, if these could have seen the history played out upon the stage before the prompter's box, they would have found it far more interesting than the transformation scenes of The Devil's Betrothed, though indeed it was the two hundred thousandth representation of a sublime allegory performed aforetime in Mesopotamia three thousand years before Christ was born.
The 'happy endings' of Broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players and audience made a large family party the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the parts always cast in the same mould. And it was almost an impromptu performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the footlights.
Every hut is surmounted by a "badgir," or wind-catcher a queer-looking contrivance, in shape exactly like a prompter's box, used in the summer heats to cool the interior of the dark, stifling huts. A mob of ragged, wild-looking Baluchis, with long, matted locks and gaudy rags, completes this dreary picture.
Esmond, forced to be quiet, betook himself to literature for a relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the prompter's copy lieth in my walnut escritoire, sealed up and docketed, "The Faithful Fool, a Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's Servants." 'Twas a very sentimental piece; and Mr. Steele, who had more of that kind of sentiment than Mr.
If by the back, she came upon the prompter's table set midway across the stage, with a twin gas-bracket shooting up behind it like a geyser, and an open space of some twenty feet by twenty in front whereon the imaginary passions were to disport themselves at play. Glory found real ones among them, and they were sometimes in hideous earnest.
'Heigho! sighed Nicholas, as he threw himself back in the prompter's chair, after telegraphing the needful directions to Smike, who had been playing a meagre tailor in the interlude, with one skirt to his coat, and a little pocket-handkerchief with a large hole in it, and a woollen nightcap, and a red nose, and other distinctive marks peculiar to tailors on the stage. 'Heigho!
His version was made from the prompter's copy, before the play was published, and, like Coleridge's Wallenstein, contains many passages not found in the printed edition. These are distinguished by brackets. On the other hand, Mr. Mellish omitted many passages which now form part of the printed drama, all of which are now added.
The audience saw that something was wrong, and catcalls and whistling and impertinent remarks were heard from all parts of the house. The King turned red, and stood first on one foot and then on another; and at last he muttered between his teeth 'I'll have that prompter's head cut off!
Whom grasping Time so long has spared Life's sweet illusions to pursue, The common lot of age have shared? In every pulse of Friendship's heart There breeds unfelt a throb of pain, One hour must rend its links apart, Though years on years have forged the chain. So ends "The Boys," a lifelong play. We too must hear the Prompter's call To fairer scenes and brighter day Farewell!
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