, 1906-03-16

Bilious Nye and the Amateur Stage.
A great portion of my time at pres
ent is taken up in preparations for my
appearance in a few weeks on the am
ateur stage.
Excursion trains will run from Den
yer on this occasion, and no pains Will
be spared to make the grand s%pectacu-
lar hoo-doo one long to be remembered.
Whenever any society or association
desires to make a few thousand dollars
for the relief of knock-kneed Piutes, or
to purchase liver-pads for i~mpecunious
Senegambians, it only has to advertise
that | am to appear on the amateur
stage in a heavy part.
| am not a brilliant success in the
"Say-wilt-be-mine' part. Just as l get
the heroine up close to me near the
footlights, and begin to hug her a lit
tie as l would at home, and L tempo
rarily forget that a thousand eyes are
upon me, it comes over me that my wife
is in the audience and does not seem
to enjoy the play. This throws a large
%four-dollar gloom over the entire sur
roundings, and | seem to lose my grip,
so to speak.
Many years 6 when l was young
and, as one might say, in the hey-day
of vigorous manhood, and had an APP
petite like a P. X. Dederick perpetual
hay press, 1 consented to take a lead
ing part, and although l could general
ly worry through a little light comedy,
| had not her learned how rough and
uncouth l appeared as the heavy lover.
l therefore consented to hug a beauti-
full young thing before five hundred
people, and in the full glare Of the foot
lights, whom I would not have dared
to wink at in her fathers parlor at mid,
might, with the lamp turned clear down,
l have an easy, gliding stage gait
that is something between a pace
and a rack" 1t IS full of the very
poetry of motion.
l tracked" up to the heroine at the
proper lllllS anu lOlu utl uO" L IOhSh
her and how it was tearing me all to
pieces, and so forth. Just as / was
looming to the grand flourish, however,
| forgot a word, and while l was think.
ing that up, the remainder of the
speech slowly drifted away to where
| couldn't get at it.
To add to the general hilarity of the
occasion the stage manager, who was
furnishing at that moment some pale
blue lightning and distant thunder, and
who happened to be drunk, threw in a
heavy snow storm that should have
gone into another piece.
l stood there waiting and trying tC
think of my part about thirty years
l should think. Any way, the snow got
knee deep and the heroine excused her
self and went away to warm her feet
She told me to call her up by telephone
when l could think of my piece.
l thought the audience would be mad
and mob me, but it didn't. There seem
ed to be general good feeling and har
mony all the way through. l told them
that 1 could not call to mind the exact
words of my part, but if those present
would like to hear a little poem thai
had gone the rounds of the press a goot
deal and which composed myself, en-
/, titled THE Burial of Sir John Moore
/ would render it in my own choice ant
happy style.
1t is not a humorous poem, but the
audience. seemed to think it was, fol
all the way through from the time the
procession started out with Sir Johr
till he was planted. everybody was
Itickled nearly to death.
Now l do not take the part of the
leading lover any more. The awkward
young man who carries dead bodies of
the stage is good enough for me.-Bil
Nye.
uNlauo l. ...- "a - ,,I l., Att .oatyNr