man would probably be slaughtered to death and buried at an early
period of his career, but on the stage they put up with him.

He is very good, is the comic man. He can't bear villainy. To thwart
villainy is his life's ambition, and in this noble object fortune
backs him up grandly. Bad people come and commit their murders and
thefts right under his nose, so that he can denounce them in the last
act.

They never see him there, standing close beside them, while they are
performing these fearful crimes.

It is marvelous how short-sighted people on the stage are. We always
thought that the young lady in real life was moderately good at not
seeing folks she did not want to when they were standing straight in
front of her, but her affliction in this direction is as nothing
compared with that of her brothers and sisters on the stage.

These unfortunate people come into rooms where there are crowds of
people about--people that it is most important that they should see,
and owing to not seeing whom they get themselves into fearful trouble,
and they never notice any of them. They talk to somebody opposite,
and they can't see a third person that is standing bang between the
two of them.

You might fancy they wore blinkers.

Then, again, their hearing is so terribly weak. It really ought to be
seen to. People talk and chatter at the very top of their voices
close behind them, and they never hear a word--don't know anybody's