Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-05-18
nd Mir. -. They say it'll be half an

find Mr. -. They say it'll be half an hour before it will be put right"
 Tom rushed into the theatre. As he went upon the stage he could hear the audience stamping and shouting. It was then five minutes past the time the cur tain should have gone up.
 Everybody was bustling about, and there was evidently something wrong.
 'Its all right" said the stage man. ager, coming up to Tom and trying to ease his mind. 'Its not so bad as we thought. We'll ring up directly. We can get it right, dare say, while the first scene is playing. If not, I must come on and explain there's been an ac- cident"
 Tom groaned and rushed out into the street again. "Oh, my poor play, my poor play" he cried, tits damned before it's begun.
 E \ *
 An hour and half later Tom, pale, shivering, clutching his hands together in nervous excitement. crept into the back of the pit. The third act was just beginning. There was very powerful scene in this act. Tom had built upon its making a great impression on the audience.
 The villain suddenly appears at win dow, and while another villain is writ ing letter, shoots him, and the unfn- shed letter is left on the table and found by the hero, who rrlshes in and reads the plot against his happiness.
 The villain has to cautiously open the window. He does so after struggling with it for five minutes, and making a noise which could be heard all over the house, but of which the other villain takes no notice.
 "He has not heard me" says the vil- lain.
 ''He must be jolly deaf then" said a boy in the gallery, and the house titters.
 The precipitation bursts from every pore of Toms skin His situation is go- ing wrong.
 But the house is hushed immediately There is no fairer audience in the world than that which assemblies in a London theatre on the first night
 But it is only human audience, and so when, as the villain crept in at the window and was just advancing on his victim, the looking glass, real, fastened on the scene, came down with crash, and the victim, following his author, ex- claimed, ''No sound disturbs the silence of the night" there was a roar.
 The situation was going fast. It went utterly when the villain, disconcerted, as well he might be, in creeping up be- hind the victims chair, caught his foot against platform intended to draw the table off for a change of scene, and fell sprawling, his pistol going off between his unconscious victims feet.
 With the roars of irresistible laughter which followed this final catastrophe ringing in his ears. Tom Johnson rushed from the theatre to the Thames embark. ment.
 Ut is ruin. It is disgrace" he cried ''I can never survive it. Curse the houI when gave myself up to this life oi constant harass, annoyance and disap i pointmentl How can 1 read the awful things that will be said of me in the pa. pers to-morrowl How can l meet my friends and listen to their condolences How can 1 ever enter theatre again No, will not live to die in lunatic asy lum. will end it all in the peaceful river"
 Tom leaped upon the parapet and wa: about to make the fatal plunge, when he heard sweet silvery voice behind him
 It was the China fairy's.
 With frantic cry Tom turned to her "C2n you grant me another wish?" hC exclaimed.
 Certainly"
 'Then make me clerk in the city again, and at once."