The Savannah morning news., 1901-03-14

I'm my profession the memory often
plays us queer tricks" said an actor who
was in the city recently with road COM
pany, according to the New Orleans
Times Democrat. "They are q sort of
protest. I presume, against overwork, and
Of all such mental antics 1 know of moth
ing stranger than the way we are uncon-
sciously affected by association. Along
that line, by the way, l can tell you a
curious little story Some time in the
early eighties / was a member of a com
pany that was putting on a series Of old
time dramas and melo-dramaS at one of
the theaters in Philadelphia. AS matter
of course we produced that good old
standby, The Ticket of Leave Man. and
I was cast for Hawkshaw, the detective.
The first night we put the play on l
was not feeling very well and was con-
siderably worried about my lines which,
for some reason or other, / had expert
enced great difficulty in memorizing. I
went down 20 the dressing room mutter-
ing them over, put on my costume and
made-up mechanically, and answered the
call boy with my heart in my mouth.
AS luck would have it, however, l
stumbled through without any serious
break, and was resuming my street
CiOLiitS dLl6I the performance, III rather
an elated mood, when I suddenly missed
my watch. 1t was beautiful timepiece
that had belonged to my father, and
valued 1t so highly that, as a matter of
precaution, 1 generally carried it with
me on the stage, But what 1 had done
with it this particular night was more
than l could say ] remembered looking
at 1t on the way to the theater, so l evil
IDENTIFY had 1t on my person when l came
in, but the rest was all a blank. My mind
had been so occupied with those con-
founded lines that 1 had gone through
the preliminaries of dressing and I'M
dressing like a mere automaton. l search
ed high and low, everybody else did like
wise, and we continued to ransack the
place for days, but not a sign could we
ma of the missing watch. At last l gave
1t up and dismissed it from my mind.
Three years afterward,' the actor
went on, Il happened to be again en-
ployed in stock company at the same
house, and in our repertoire, as usual, was
the Ticket of Leave Man When the
time came for its production l mention
ed having played the detective before and
was accordingly assigned to the part; but
| had forgotten all about having been in
that character the night lost my watch.
So as matter of fact, I was thinking
about something entirely different the
first evening l dressed for the role, and
1 was just completing my makeup when,
without warning or apparent connection
with my train of thought, the solution
Of the mystery darted across my mind.
suddenly remembered, clearly and dis
tinctly, that j had placed the watch in a
little recess behind loose plank at the
further end of the dressing room, in
tending to get it out again when l came
from the stage In two bounds reached
the spot, pulled back the plank, and there
lay my heirloom "a trifle dusty but other
wise none the worse for its three years
of seclusion.
II am no psychologist" added the ac-
tor, land don't pretend to offer scien-
tific explanation for the incident, but it
! seems reasonable to suppose that some
little detail of my makeup, possibly some
chance gesture, started a chain of asso-
citation and aroused the dormant brain
cell that held the missing link At any
rate those are the facts, and if you can
suggest a better theory you are well
come to do so.''