GOING FOR GALLAGHER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3051, 6 April 1881, Page 4

GOING FOR GALLAGHER.

Gallagher was President of a dramatic club in Boston, and wrote a piece for them. It called for nine persons, and everybody in the cast considered that he or she had the worst part, and that it was made so on purpose. At first they didn't propose to play, but finally decided to do so, and concocted a plan to punish Gallagher. He played the hero, and in the first act said farewell to his mother and went off to sea, and when she parted with him she contrived to wrench his head and scratch his nose on a pin fixed in the shoulder of her dress for that purpose. That eased her mind and disturbed his. Bub he submitted, In the next act he appeared on ship board, and had to be knocked down by a civil captain, who hit him so earnestly with a belaying pin that it nearly killed him. And then, when lie headed a mutiny and called to tho mutineers, 'Follow me !' somebody opened a trap and he ignomintously fell through it, and got terribly guyed by tho audience. He was awful mad, bub determined Lo conquer in spite of the disaster, and so came up and went on with the play. In the third act he was to have a terrible combat with the villain of tho play and whip

him. Mr Hencoope Smythe played the part. He was satisfied that he had the worst part in the piece, and that Gallagher had made it so to spite him. Gallagher, as he clinched him cried, 'Villain ! I'll beat your life out in two seconds !' But he didn't. The villain was the strongest man, and the way he lathered Gallagher aboir the stage was awful. But when it came t • where the villain was to cry, ' Let mo iq> I'm crushed!' he had Gallagher jammed under the table and beating him with •> chair leg, and, of course, his speech and Gallagher's reply, ' I will not spare voir life !' sounded absurd. Before the villain consented to be overcome lie had got the audience to shrieking with laughter, and had beaten Gallagher black and blue all over. Gallagher went homo terribly enraged, and the rest of the company were delighted. 1 n nn 'I'ipn'i" >1 Mm next "i I p li I '( iiul 11 i iin 'own the lie hint all the other and in U <■ fight with the villain mopped up the whol. stage with him, and hurled him clear through the back flat. The company and the scenery were completely wrecked. _ Con fusion reigned, and Gallagher sat in the front and laughed till he nearly died.