A terrible struggle appeared to be going on behind the green baize [cloth], and an occasional “Oh ! ah—hold hard, Jim”—“ hit him on the head”—“ that’s it”—no it isn’t,” etc., were heard for some minutes by the audience in front, who by this time had become greatly excited, and not a little alarmed. Amidst the call for the “manager” the exclamations was heard—“ he’ll break his chains”—“ there he goes !”—and the door-keeper rushes from behind the scenes, hatless and breathless, his hair on end, while the shouts at the top of his lungs —“Save yourselves, gentlemen! Save your children! The Guyuscutus is loose!”
It needs hardly to be added that the immediate rush for the door was ‘immense,’ and that in the melee, the overturning of chairs and settees—the shrieks of the women, and the yelling of the children, our Yankees mizzle—which the audience, up-on recovering their feet and their senses, only learn, too late, that the proprietors’ of the exhibition have sloped, and that, individually and collectively—they had been done brown [cheated].
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