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Thames Star, Volume IIII, Issue 1729, 18 July 1874, Page 3

An Eccenteic Moon. —Thomas Brown was employed at the Bank Theatre a few years ago as a kind of utility man, and one night the manager pulp him behind the scene at the rear of the stage to take care of the moon. Brown had a candle on the end of a long pole, and it was his duty to hold the light behind the moon, which was merely a round, unpainted space in th« curtain, and to pull the curtain slowly up to represent the rising moon. Brown seated himself on a piece of baronial castle, and while waiting-for the order to go to work he fell asleep. Presently the tragedian on the stage said to the heroine, " Swear by yon bright i moon," &c, and turned to point to it, but the orb-was not there. The stage manager flew around and gave Brown a kick, and in a frenzy ordered him."to , hist that moon quick ! " Brown was bewildered, and without -waiting for - farther orders, he ran the curtain clear up with one jerk, when the cord broke, and down it came again. Another string was hurriedly rigged on the pulley, and the jfhoon began to rise properly ; but Brown's nerves were so unstrung by-fright that he couldn't hold- the candle steadily behind it," so .that there were 15 or 20 eclipses during the ascent, the light meanw ile wandering all over the curtain, to the infinite amusement of the audience. .However, the luminary got safely upatlast and the tragedian again observed, " Swear by yon bright moon : " but before ihe words were fairly out the cord snapped again, the curtain unrolled with velocity, and broke loose from the roller, revealing Brown, the lunar elevator, roaming round in his shirt sleeves with a candle on a .stick. A moment later the manager was fumbling among his hair, and that very night Mr. Brown closed his theatrical career. The manager remarked to a confidential friend that while a man who ..• was capable of making ihe same moon rise three times in one night, and of getting upany number of eclipses »nd other! astronomical phenomena, might be valuable for some purposes, he, was about as fit for a theatre as a wal-leyed mule was for waging hymns.—Max Adder.