"
Mr. Toole ran a burlesque on the Lyceum "Faust," called
"Faust-and-Loose." Henry did not care for burlesques as a rule. He
thought Fred Leslie's exact imitation of him, face, spectacles,
voice--everything was like Henry except the ballet-skirt--in the worst
taste. But everything that Toole did was to him adorable. Marie Linden
gave a really clever imitation of me as Marguerite. She and her sister
Laura both had the trick of taking me off. I recognized the truth of
Laura's caricature in the burlesque of "The Vicar of Wakefield" when as
Olivia she made her entrance, leaping impulsively over a stile!
There was an absurd chorus of girl "mashers" in "Faust-and-Loose,"
dressed in tight black satin coats, who besides dancing and singing had
lines in unison, such as "No, no!" "We will!" As one of these girls
Violet Vanbrugh made her first appearance on the stage. In her case "we
will!" proved prophetic. It was her plucky "I will get on" which finally
landed her in her present successful position.
Violet Barnes was the daughter of Prebendary Barnes of Exeter, who, when
he found his daughter stage-struck, behaved far more wisely than most
parents. He gave her L100 and sent her to London with her old nurse to
look after her, saying that if she really "meant business" she would
find an engagement before the L100 was gone.
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