Among the spectators that filled the front row of
our little canvas theatre one afternoon, when I had to figure in a
pantomime, was a party of young ladies from a boarding-school, with
their governess. Guess my confusion, when, in the midst of my antics, I
beheld among the number my quondam flame; her whom I had be-rhymed at
school; her for whose charms I had smarted so severely; tho cruel
Sacharissa! What was worse, I fancied she recollected me; and was
repeating the story of my humiliating flagellation, for I saw her
whispering her companions and her governess. I lost all consciousness
of the part I was acting, and of the place where I was. I felt shrunk
to nothing, and could have crept into a rat-hole--unluckily, none was
open to receive me. Before I could recover from my confusion, I was
tumbled over by Pantaloon and the clown; and I felt the sword of
Harlequin making vigorous assaults, in a manner most degrading to my
dignity.
Heaven and earth! was I again to suffer martyrdom in this ignominious
manner, in the knowledge, and even before the very eyes of this most
beautiful, but most disdainful of fair ones? All my long-smothered
wrath broke out at once; the dormant feelings of the gentleman arose
within me; stung to the quick by intolerable mortification, I sprang on
my feet in an instant; leaped upon Harlequin like a young tiger; tore
off his mask; buffeted him in the face, and soon shed more blood on the
stage than had been spilt upon it during a whole tragic campaign of
battles and murders.
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