At length they ceased; the little drop-curtain was slowly rolled up so
as to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in all
the glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on the
stage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almost
painful in its contrast with the previous tumult.
Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared so
carefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He stepped
forward, and gazed appealingly at the silent audience; but no word came
from his dry lips. He swallowed convulsively, and appeared to be
struggling with himself. A titter of laughter sounded from the back of
the room. The old man's face became fiery red and then deathly pale.
He looked helplessly and pitifully from side to side.
"Wind him up!" shouted a voice.
"He's stopped short, never to go again," called another.
"He's an old fraud, and his show's a fake!"
"Speech! speech!"
"No; a song! Let old dot-and-carry-one give us a song!"
"Oh, shut up! Don't you see he's a ballet-dancer?"
And so the derisive jeerings of this audience, like those of another
twenty years before, hailed Cap'n Cod's second failure. His confidence
in himself, his years of experience, the memory of what he ought to
say, all vanished the moment he faced that mass of upturned faces, and
he was once more the dumb, trembling Codringhampton of twenty years
before.
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