AN ECCENTRIC MOON.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 346, 1 August 1874, Page 2

AN ECCENTRIC MOON.

Thomas BnowN was employed sit the Batik Theatre a few years ago as a kind of utility man, and one night the manager put bira behind the scene at the rear of the .stage to take cure of the moon. Brown had a candle on the end of .1 long pole, and it was his duty to hold the light behind the nioon, which j was merely a round, unpainted space in the curtain, and to pull the curtain slowly up to represent the rising of the 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, " Svrear by yon bright tuoou," &c., >vud turned to point to Jt, but the orb was not there. The stage mauager Hew around and gave Brown a kick, aud in a I frenzy ordered him "to h'ht that moon quick !" i Brown was bewildered, aud without waiting for further orers, he ran the curtain clear with one jerk, when the cord broke, and down it cam© again. Another string was hurriedly rigged on the pulley, und the moon began to rise properly ; but Biowu'h nerves were so unstiung by fright that he couldn't hold the candle steadily behind it, so that there were 15 or 20 eclipses duritfg the ascent, the light meanwhile wandering all over the curtain, to the infinite amusement of the audience. However, the luminary got safely up at last, and the tragedian again observed, '^Swoav by yon bright moon ;" but before the words were fairly out the I cord snapped again, the curtain unrolled with I velocity, aud broke loose from the roller, revealing Biown, the lunar elevator, roaming round in Kin shirt sleeves with a candle on a stick. A moment after 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 the man who was capable of i making the same moon rise tln-ee times in one night, and of getting up any number of eclipses und other astronomical phenomena, might be valuable for some purposes, he was about as fit for a theatre n» a wall-eyed mule was for singing hymns. — Max Adder.