San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-02-15
NEWGAG.

was best known by those who best knew
him. 1t had been thrown at him in cafe
one night by a newspaper man after the
performance, and had chung to him. Its
significance lay in the fact that his gags"
supposedly comic things said by presum-
ably comic men in nominal opera or bur
lesque-invariably were old. The man who
bestowed the title upon him thought it
fine bit of irony.
Newgag received it without expressed
resentment, but without mirth, and he
bore its repetition patiently as seasons
went by He was accustomed to enduring
calmly the jests, the indignities that were
elected by his peculiar appearance, his
doleful expression, his slow and bungling
speech and movement, his diffident manner.
He was one of the forbearing men, the
many who are doomed to continual suffer
ing of kind that their sensitiveness and
timidity make it the more difficult for
them to bear. Undying ambition burned
beneath his undemonstrsitive surface;
dauntless courage lay under his lack of
ability.
He was an extremely spare man, of ex-
traordinary height and the bend of his
shoulders gave the small head comical
thrust forward. His black hair was with
out curl and it would tolerate no other ar
rangement than being combed back
straight. 1t was allowed to grow down
ward until it scraped the back of Newgag's
collar. a device for concealing the meager-
ness of his neck.
He had a smooth, pale face, slanting
from ears to nose like wedge; and the
- IL IL ii - a.. -,
Irrespective cast. He blushed, as rule,
when he met new acquaintanceso or was ad-
dressed suddenly. He had gloomy look
and hesitating way of speech. An anus
ing spectacle was his mechanical looking
smile, which, when he became conscious
of it, passed through several stages ex-
pressive of embarrassment until his normal
.nournful aspect was reached.
As he usually appeared in sack coat
when off the stage, the length Of his legs
was divertingly emphasized. After the
fashion of great actors of a bygone genera
ton, he wore a soft black felt hat, dinged
in the crown from front to rear.
He had entered 1.-THE profession" from the
amateur stage, by way of the comic opera
chorus, and to that chance was due his
being located in the comic opera wing of
the great histrionic edifice. He had orig.
inally preferred tragedy; but the first con
sideration was the getting upon the stage
by any means. Having industriously
worked his way out of the chorus he had
been reconciled by habit to his environ
ment and had come to aspire to eminence
therein. He had reached the standing of a
secondary comedian-that is to say, a man
playing secondary comic roles in the pieces
for which he is cast, He was useful in
such companies as were directly or in
directly controlled by their leading come
dians; for there never could be any fear of
his outshining those autocratic personages.
Only in his widest hopes did he ever look
upon the center of the stage as spot posi-
BILE for him to attain.
His means of evoking laughter upon the
stage were laborious upon his part and
mystifying to the thoughtful observer. He
took noticeable pains to change from his
real self. 1t mattered not what were the
nature of the part he filled, he invariably
assumed an unnatural, strained, rasping
voice; he stretched his mouth to its utmost
reach and lowered the extremities of his
lips; he turned his toes inward NATURALLY
his feet described an abnormal outward
angle) and bowed his arms. Brought up
in the school which teaches that to make
others laugh one must never smile ones
self, he wore a grotesquely lugubrious and
changeless countenance Such was New
gag in his every impersonation. When he
thought he was funniest he appeared to be
in most pain and was most depressing.
my. methods are legitimate anyhow"
he would say when he had enlisted ones
attention and apparent admiration across
a table bearing beer bottles and sand
witches. 1.-THE people want horse play now
adays. But when I've got to descend to
that sort of thing I'll go to the variety
stage or circus ring at once-or quit"
'That's happy thought, old man., u
said comedian of the younger school one
night, when Newgag had uttered his
wonted speech. why don't you quit3"
Such a speech sufficed to rob Newgag of
his self possession and to reduce him to
silence He could not cope with easy, off
hand, impromptu testers. In truth, no
one tried more than Newgag to excel in
''horse play" but his temperament or his
training did not equip him for excelling in
it; he defended the monotony, emptiness
and toilsomeness of his humor on the
ground that it was Legitimate"
One night Newgag drank two glasses OF
beer in rapid succession and looked at me
with touching countenance.
"Old boy" he said, in his homely drawl,
"Tm discouraged! begin to think Pm
not in itp'
"Why, what's wrong"
"Well-Pve dropped to the fact that
after all these years in the business can't
make them laugh"
Twas about to say, Soyou've just awak-
ened to that9" but pity and politeness de
tered me. Every one else had known it.
al these years. Newgag, to be sure, should
naturally have been, as he was, the last to
discover it.
Newgag thus went one step further than