The Triplets, while their patroness lived, did pretty well. She got a
tragedy of his accepted at her theater. She made him send her a copy, and
with her scissors cut out about half; sometimes thinning, sometimes
cutting bodily away. But, lo! the inherent vanity of Mr. Triplet came out
strong. Submissively, but obstinately, he fought for the discarded
beauties. Unluckily, he did this one day that his patroness was in one of
her bitter humors. So she instantly gave him back his manuscript, with a
sweet smile owned herself inferior in judgment to him, and left him
unmolested.
Triplet breathed freely; a weight was taken off him. The savage steel (he
applied this title to the actress's scissors) had spared his _purpurei
panni._ He was played, pure and intact, a calamity the rest of us
grumbling escape.
But it did so happen that the audience were of the actress's mind, and
found the words too exuberant, and the business of the play too scanty in
proportion. At last their patience was so sorely tried that they supplied
one striking incident to a piece deficient in facts. They gave the
manager the usual broad hint, and in the middle of Triplet's third act a
huge veil of green baize descended upon "The Jealous Spaniard.'
Failing here, Mrs. Woffington contrived often to befriend him in his
other arts, and moreover she often sent Mr. Triplet what she called a
snug investment, a loan of ten pounds, to be repaid at Doomsday, with
interest and compound interest, according to the Scriptures; and,
although she laughed, she secretly believed she was to get her ten pounds
back, double and treble.
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