Poor Yorick was a thin man, with a smooth, gentle face, lamblike blue eyes,
and curling gray locks that receded gracefully from his forehead. He had
just an individualizing amount of the pomposity characteristic of many
old-time actors. He was not known to have any living kin. He permitted
himself one weakness, a liking for whiskey, an indulgence which was never
noticed to have brought appreciable harm upon him.
Once I asked him when he had made his debut. He answered, "When Joe
Jefferson was still young and before Billie Crane was heard of."
"In what role?"
"As four soldiers," he replied.
"How could that be?"
He explained that he had first appeared as a super in a military drama,
marching as a soldier. The procession, in order to create an illusion of
length, had passed across the stage and back, the return being made behind
the scenes four times continuously in the same direction.
The old man took uncomplainingly to the name applied to him by Bridges.
He must have known what it implied, for surely he could not have mistaken
himself for "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
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