A STORY FROM THE STALLS

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 15 May 1912, Page 3

A STORY FROM THE STALLS

I shall never forget an amusing scene I witnessed at (I think) His Majesty's Theatre some years ago during- the revival of "Julius Caesar." A stout lady, who had arrived extremely late, was making her way with some difficulty to her stall in the centre of the third row. Upon her ample bosom was fixed a large brooch of cairngorms and garnets, fastened to her corsage by a long-, protruding pin. As she squeezed . between the exiguous seats she somehow contrived to hook her brooch into the heads of a Hebraic' gentleman and his two lady companions who were sitting innocently in the row in front, little dreaming that they would be attacked from such an unexpected quarter. Owing to the noise of the crowd upon the stage, which drowned the cries of her victims, the stout lady did not discover that there was something amiss until she had reached her seat. She was then amazed to notice that two fluffy yellow toupees and the lobe of a human ear were jauntily depending from her bodice. With many suitable apologies she hastened to return their flaxen chignons to the ladies with coal-black eyebrows to whom they so evidently belonged, but when she politely pressed the severed portion of his least prominent feature upon their indignant Jewish companion he declined it with every symptom of disgust and annoyance. Although upon the stage the actors had by this time reached the famous Forum scene, it was carrying realism a little too far, as he bitterly observed, when members of the audience followed Mark Antony's example and borrowed one another's ears!— Harry Graham in "The Graphic."