They Were Absolute Tape-Worms
To My Little Theatre; The More It Took In, The Poorer It Grew.
They
were sure to leave me with an exhausted public, empty benches, and a
score or two of affronts to settle among the townsfolk, in consequence
of misunderstandings about the taking of places.
But the worst thing I had to undergo in my managerial career was
patronage. Oh, sir, of all things deliver me from the patronage of the
great people of a country town. It was my ruin. You must know that this
town, though small, was filled with feuds, and parties, and great
folks; being a busy little trading and manufacturing town. The mischief
was that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference
to the court calendar, or college of heraldry. It was therefore the
most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but
let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier
feuds, which take place on these "debatable lands" of gentility. The
most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that
occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between the
ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles.
At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of
the kind. The head manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers
drawings with the head shopkeeper's, and both were too rich and had too
many friends to be treated lightly.
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