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SHOWMAN
was riding him, unable to do anything about it. And then, as horses always will at the wrong moment . . .
The ballet was to follow, but this had put it out of the question. There was pandemonium out front, the whole audience shrieking with laughter, and the devil to pay backstage. The manager handed the propertyman a shovel and a broom and told him to go out and clean up. The property-man refused, saying something about how he hadn't been hired for a stable-boy. At which point the leading man turned to me and said: "Brady, why don't you do it?" Offhand I couldn't think of why not— so the Czar of Russia tucked up his sweeping ermine, settled his crown more firmly on his head, took the broom and shovel and marched out on the stage— in the confusion nobody had thought of ringing down the curtain— to clean up. Tumultuous applause. The show went on.
They make good stories afterwards, but that kind of business in one form or another was all in the day's work when you were trouping. A complicated life — particularly, if, like me, you were bent on sticking your oar into all departments of the business. Merely juggling the scenery was enough to have driven a greenhorn mad. There was a whole science of standard scenery which you had to master. A respectable theater always owned a certain amount of stuff for the use of traveling companies— I can recite the list backwards yet. One "center-door fancy," one "side-door fancy," one "two-door fancy," one kitchen, one "palace arch,"
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