A Market for an Impulse

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 Excerpt: ...see these mysteries or the actors, save in their histrionic characters! The illusion must not be broken. Behind there with the rumbling wings they could sustain the wonder. Now a clash of steel! Are they rehearsing a fencing scene? Bilson is Romeo; Cobbin, Mercutio; Team is Tybalt: a trio serious enough indeed to impress that monster, an audience of neighbors, forevermore, if only they shall appear presently as they imagine they will; perhaps in any case. Chickering's ironic presiding over the realm of dreams in these rival souls would have made collapse itself issue in good humor. One would have thought that Ariel was there to fill the place with atmospheres of jest. He sat several rows behind Margaret and those with her, with Towne between him and Mollestone, and Mr. Baybridge and Hilland Hilworthy not far off. Longley was there, too, farther away in a graded obscurity. When Miss Bidd turned to look for the doctor, a comical expression lit her face. She withdrew her eyes, arranged her back-hair, and whispered to Margaret and Miss Tamper; for she noted the doctor's elfin smile curling at the corners of his mouth; frolicing in the muscles of laughter in his cheeks; gleaming in his eyes. Had she been nearer to hear him speak she might have been moved herself to Queen Mab pranks at sound of his merry-making voice: for on his very tongue's tip was mischief disporting. Not that he did not hold himself in befitting lowliness of spirit, if he compared himself at all with these competing amateurs. Probably he knew how dangerous it was to overlook the possibility in them of some wild adaptation to the stage that might bring down the house. But with such material at hand he was not one who could help doing as he did; being as he was. How did Chickering get Towne in ...