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“The Zancig Mystery.” Daily Telegraph, no. 16,119, Dec. 27, 1906, p. 11
TO THE EDITOR OF “THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.”
SIR – About thirty years ago I was rehearsing, at the old Gaiety Theatre, the part of harlequin, which I had undertaken to play in an amateur pantomime. After rehearsal I left the theatre, with the late Mr. John Hollingshead, who had occasion to call at a music-hall in the Westminster Bridge-road on some matter of business, and, at his invitation, I accompanied him. One of the “turns” was an exhibition of clairvoyance, performed by a gentleman in the auditorium and a blindfolded lady on the stage. My harlequin’s shoes had been supplied to me that day at the theatre, and, after rehearsal, I took them home, with a view of practicing some of the steps at my leisure. I may remind your readers that a harlequin’s shoe is an ordinary dancing pump with a triangular piece of white kid on its surface, with one of the angles pointing towards the toes. As a good test subject, I handed one of these shoes to the performer in the audience, and he asked the lady to describe it. She replied, “It’s a kind of dancing shoe, but it has a triangular white patch on the upper leather which I do not quite understand.”
I am quite at a loss to know how this latter fact could have been communicated to the lady on the stage by any preconcerted scheme of signals, for the performers could hardly have been prepared for so very unlikely an object as a shoe of this particular description. Possibly your correspondent may be able to suggest an explanation. – Yours faithfully,
W.S. GILBERT
Harrow Weald, Dec. 25.
Page modified 7 August 2018