The people on the stage think very highly of the good old man, but they don't encourage him much after the first act. He generally dies in the first act.

 

If he does not seem likely to die they murder him.

 

He is a most unfortunate old gentleman. Anything he is mixed up in seems bound to go wrong. If he is manager or director of a bank, smash it goes before even one act is over. His particular firm is always on the verge¹ of bankruptcy². We have only to be told that he has put all his savings³ into a company—no matter how sound and promising⁴ an affair it may always have been and may still seem—to know that that company is a "goner."

 

No power on earth can save it after once the good old man has become a shareholder⁵.

 

If we lived in stage-land and were asked to join any financial scheme, our first question would be:

 

"Is the good old man in it?" If so, that would decide us.

 

When the good old man is a trustee for any one he can battle against adversity much longer. He is a plucky⁶ old fellow, and while that trust money lasts he keeps a brave heart and fights on boldly. It is not until he has spent the last penny of it that he gives way.

 

It then flashes across the old man's mind that his motives⁷ for having lived in luxury upon that trust money for years may possibly be misunderstood. The world—the hollow, heartless world—will call it a swindle and regard him generally as a precious old fraud.

 

This idea quite troubles the good old man.

 

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