Remarks by Bill Nye (best non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
- Author: Bill Nye
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There were other little incidents like that which occurred in and around the old theater, some growing out of the lost love of a beer-jerker, some from an injudicious investment in a bob-tail flush that never got ripe enough to pick, and some from the rarified mountain air, united with an epidemic known as mania rotguti.
A funny incident of the stage occurred not long ago to a friend of mine, who is traveling with a play in which a stage cow appears. He is using what is called a profile cow now, which works by machinery. Last winter this cow ran down while in the middle of the stage, and forgot her lines. The prompter gave the string a jerk in order to assist her. This broke the cow in two, and the fore-quarters walked off to the left into one dressing-room, while the behind-quarters and porter-house steak retired to the outer dressing-room. The audience called for an encore; but the cow felt as though she had made a kind of a bull of the part, and would not appear. Those who may be tempted to harshly criticise this last remark, are gently reminded that the intense heat of the past month is liable to effect anyone's mind. Remember, gentle reader, that your own brain may some day soften also, and then you will remember how harsh you were toward me.
Prior to the profile cow, the company ran a wicker-work cow, that was hollow and admitted of two hired-men, who operated the beast at a moderate salary. These men drilled a long time on what they called a heifer dance—a beautiful spectacular, and highly moral and instructive quadruped clog, sirloin shuffle, and cow gallop, to the music of a piano-forte. The rehearsals had been crowned with success, and when the cow came on the stage she got a bouquet, and made a bran mash on one of the ushers.
She danced up and down the stage, perfectly self-possessed, and with that perfect grace and abandon which is so noticeable in the self-made cow. Finally she got through, the piano sounded a wild Wagnerian bang, and the cow danseuse ambled off. She was improperly steered, however, and ran her head against a wing, where she stopped in full view of the audience. The talent inside of the cow thought they had reached the dressing-room and ran against the wall, so they felt perfectly free to converse with each other. The cow stood with her nose jammed up against the wing, wrapped in thought, Finally, from her thorax the audience heard a voice say:
“Jim, you blamed galoot, that ain't the step we took at rehearsal no more'n nuthin'. If you're going to improvise a new cow duet, I wish you wouldn't take the fore-quarters by surprise next time.”
It is not now known what the reply was, for just then the prompter came on the stage, rudely twisted the tail of the cow, rousing her from her lethargy, and harshly kicking her in the pit of the stomach, he drove her off the stage, The audience loudly called for a repetition, but the cow refused to come in.
George the Third.
George III was born in England June 4, 1738, and ran for king in 1760. He was a son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and held the office of king for sixty years. He was a natural born king and succeeded his grandfather, George II. Look as you will a-down the long page of English history, and you will not fail to notice the scarcity of self-made kings. How few of them were poor boys and had to skin along for years with no money, no influential friends and no fun.
Ah, little does the English king know of hard times and carrying two or three barrels of water to a tired elephant in order that he may get into the afternoon performance without money. When he gets tired of being prince, all he has to do is just to be king all day at good wages, and then at night take off his high-priced crown, hang it up on the hat-rack, put on a soft hat and take in the town.
George III quit being prince at the age of 22 years, and began to hold down the English throne. He would reign along for a few years, taking it kind of quiet, and then all at once he would declare war and pick out some people to go abroad and leave their skeletons on some foreign shore. That was George's favorite amusement. He got up the Spanish war in two years after he clome the throne; then he had an American revolution, a French revolution, an Irish rebellion and a Napoleonic war. He dearly loved carnage, if it could be prepared on a foreign strand. George always wanted imported carnage, even if it came higher. It was in 1765, and early in George's reign, that the American stamp act passed the Legislature and the Goddess of Liberty began to kick over the dashboard.
George was different from most English kings, morally. When he spit on his hand and grasped the sceptre, he took his scruples with him right onto the throne. He was not talked about half so much as other kings before or since his time. Nine o'clock most always found George in bed, with his sceptre under the window-sash, so that he could get plenty of fresh air. As it got along toward 9 o'clock, he would call the hired girl, tell her to spread a linen lap-robe on the throne till morning, issue a royal ukase directing her to turn out the cat, and instructing the cook to set the pancake batter behind the royal stove in the council chamber, then he would wind the clock and retire. Early in the morning George would be up and dressed, have all his chores done and the throne dusted off ready for another hard day's reign.
{Illustration: WRAPPED IN SLUMBER.}
George III is the party referred to in the Declaration of Independence the present king of Great Britain, and of whom many bitter personal remarks were made by American patriots. On this side of the water George was not highly esteemed. If he had come over here to spend the summer with friends in Boston, during the days of the stamp act excitement, he could have gone home packed in ice, no doubt, and with a Swiss sunset under each eye.
George's mind was always a little on the bias, and in 1810 he went crazy for the fifth time. Always before that he had gone right ahead with his reign, whether he was crazy or not, but with the fifth attack of insanity, coupled with suggestion of the brain and blind staggers, it was decided to tie him up in the barn and let someone else reign awhile. The historian says that blindness succeeded this attack, and in 1811 the Prince of Wales became regent.
George III died at Windsor in 1820, with
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