In the Front Row.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 958, 24 December 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

In the Front Row.

BY ARTHDR NfATTHISON. PSraaiH! my dear, it's only tliem as has boon |M\S] in front rows as knows the hazard|*M«S ness of it, wliatovor sort of a front KWaVJ row it is. It is that hard to keep up, ***** an' the eye of Eump is tint fixed on you, that if it wnsn't for the glory of it, givo mo, sayal,,tho seclowlcdncss and privashqn of the backost row possible! Think of tlio pit and gallory front rows, first nights, to start with! look at them as U in tlio front row of serciety, how thoy 'as to scramblo, and fight, and tear, to keep it up! Else somebody em hid slip in ? Of course thoy would, like a helegant heel! Sumo in pollertics, same in the drama, same; everywhere, and moro ejpcshal in the front row of the ballet; for if you mnko a fox's paw there—no, my dear, it isn't a " 'unting term;" it's French for accident—if you mnko a fox's paw too, them fearful footlights shows it oft', and your skirts is too short to cover it up. The 'ole of tho 'ouso soea it; the ballot Indies onjoys it; and the "extras" are, what you may say, in oxtrasies about it. So altogether, my dear, it's the most tryinest front row as Is! " Did lem have a fox's pawl" Well, yes,' I've frequent lost my shoe; I've como on when I hadn't oughter, interfering with the cackle, andonre when I was a plnylu'a" Virgin of the : Sun"—about two months aforo littlo "Bizzmark," as Hevans toouM.hare him called —in a Pershing ballet, I foil into the Lnke of "Burnin' Hasphodel," and injured my tibbyer fearful.

" What'i a tibbyer, my love •'" All, I forgot as youdid'nt know thorn annatomik names; it means a needle bone, an 1 it threads its way up out of vonr ankel. An' thnt reminds of a bong mott of Mrs. Keeley's years ago, when she fell'tl over a catarackt, ami m, when thoyast her where sho'il hurt herself, "Oh my profetick sole, my hankie!" sessile. "Youdon'tseenothingin that!" No moro don't I; but I henrd the lending man say ns it was "doosidgood;" and I know it was a bong mott, for I remember him calling it that distract, and ho was in the front row, as regards French, and wit, and things. "How long nave I been in the battel?" Why, I've been in as many panterminos ns that old auk of n Blanslmd libself; and though my Agger isn't what it was-lie kep his!—l was that neat and trim once, ns the eyes of tlio front rows of the stalls was always hupon mo; though never in tlio 'ole corse of her spangled kercer has Jemima Hevans herer cast a hi at the golden kids as lolls there.

',' What's a golden M(U" A golden kid, my doar, is a 'appy young man as 'nsliad a father to leave him wealth, which lie spends on clothes and stalls, for he's never bout of hoithor. I remember three or four years ago, one lady—l beg her pnrding—one "person" as used to look back at 'era to that degree—she was in tho second rowthat the front row pinted it out to her oue morn-

ing at rehearsal, and pinted it out that warm and strikin'. that she broke out with such lam;widges ns porflkly shok'd us. Front row! ,r ses she. " Hold frights!" ses she. " Flopping rinosoreuscs! " ses she. " Kormak's Gum Boils I" ses she. The front row. to a lady, struck on the spot. "Out you go!" ses Kormak—little dear!—and out she wonted. Ah,my dear, if Mr. Chattcrton had only a stuck that scene into tlio Pantermine, wouldn't it ha' tlraw'd! Though, botween me and you, my dear, some of the front row was that anteek and wintry, that, after they'd rehers'd twice as the "Golden. Aii'd Dorters of Spring," Blanshad' chang'd llicir names to (he "Weerd nnd Wanderin' Winches of Winter j" an' when it come to [ho night, my lovo, they wasn't in the Bill at all, hut just went on as n ornary "Korpso de Ballot," You'ro right, key, it was" ilkgraw ful. " Kormnk's Gum Boils!" indeed. You're only a corry phccmalo at present, AmcJinr; but you'll soon bo in the front row, and then you'll tcel someday how hard it Is tohavo your old age flung in your gums by dorntlesj young porsons, which is toiiicss itself. Never be brassy, lovoy, for it only dazzles the golden kids; it soon wears off, and thon where are you ? Without brass, I'vo boon in the ballet twonfy-sevon years, and brought up a family on it, I've got four girls and three boys, as good children as cvorwarm'da mother's heart. Ah! Ameliar, my " golden kids" are all at home, bless 'cm!

■" You wish you was my dorter ?" So you shall be, my fairy dorter, my stage child, Hush! there is poor Mrs, Metcalfe; wo mustn't lot her hear us talking aboutdorters, "WhyV Becauso when wo begun the season, her dorter Carrie was in the ballot. A pretty little chesnut hnir'd, brown-eyed littlo thiug of seventeen, and her mother used to come with her cvorv right: sho isn't much abovo thirty herself, Well, we all notie'd what a delicate littlo creature she was, and I've heard her coughin' in the wings, on them bitter cold nights of winter, till I ielt my eyes getting moist a-looking at her. Well, one night, about a month ago, we was all standing, ready to flutter on,-thatwasß!an-shad'sword; he told us to '• flutter" on—and we miss'd Carrie. Wo look'd round, and ask'd the call-boy; whon, just before wo notour cuo, comes the mother, dressed in Carrie's fairy skirls, and with Carrie's silver wand. " Where's Carrie?" I ses to her, quick and frighten'd. She only just had tirao to say, with the toars rolling down her cheeks, "Sho died this morning! her money almost kept us, Mr.Kormak's let me goon instead." "Appear! appear! appear!" rings out the cue, and that poor ballet lady had to " flutter" on, her darling child dead at home. Tears in hor eyes and in her heart too, she had to go on, so as thero might be bread for the 1 two little ones still left at home, :

"Was there nobody to kip her in her troitblef" Ah! mygM, you little know the theatrical.purfession,.if you:think that every ballet-lady's hand wasn't in her pockot—not her fairy one—that niglit. Mliero 11 ain't a Nome;

I'm Fairy, I don't dwell in caves; I dance on the greenswnrd, I nin't a toad In nn 'ole; I'm a bounding Nymp of the Wators, I don't grovel in the earth; I float on tho clouds. I ain't got no right to be moloncoly: I've got to smile, and pirontt, and wreotlie, and twino, and wind, and tio myself up in knots with the others, an' undo myself, all to lovely music, and sottercr; and I do it, have done it, and will do itas long as I've got a leg to stand oh, When ballet and chorus gets woll planted on the stage, .you can't easy uproot'em. Not you. "What's the matter ?" Matter! Why, that's old Mrs MacStiviu, tho Mother of the Ballet, my dear. Thnnk Goodness, she didn't s;c me! tor she's that cross-grained and venor-. mous, that there's no living in the thoatre with her. There'd bo no living anywhere with hor, not oven in tlio Regency Park Why, my dear, she's bnrie-l niuo children; and I think it'ud been good thing for serciety in general, and tho ballet in peticklor, if—, Sho nin't n listening, issho? "M." All right I think it would ha 1 licon a good thing it it had been tho other' way about, and—tho -nino-children—had—-buried—her! She's a beesoin!

" What's that circular I've gott" Oli! it's a" call" to go to bo comvorted with tea and buns

and a flourish of crumpets, at Hexotcr Ra'l. I've often been reform'd with muffins and tea and tilings, and I'm that willin to be conwertcd simlar and regler that I lapsis into sin again immegent. " Got" O 1 course I shall go; it pleases them, and don't do us no harm, On you go, Ameliar; there's Kormnk's stick a-snwiu' the air; let's flutter on, lovey. "Appoar ! appear! appear! Frou-u-u-u. Nolnolno! Go back! go back! All over again! Yah I Front row simply disgraceful! Now! Ah! that's something like! One! two! threo! • Lovely, lovely! lovely! "-The Green Room,