_Friday._ I played _Macduff_, and two or three other parts in _Macbeth_, one of the witches being drunk, we were obliged to make shift with two. The farce _Miss in her teens_: I was Fribble; and the house barber having gone off in a pet, because I could not pay him his week's bill, I was obliged to go on without my hair being dressed.--Shared ten pence and a candle.
_Saturday. The Orphan._ The manager had taken _Castalio_ himself, and insisted on my playing _Acasto_. An ignorant country fellow introduced it only to support Acasto in the third act, stands on the stage, when I asked "where are all my friends?" answered, "sir, they are at the George over a mug of ale." We afterwards had the _Padlock_ without music. I played _Mungo_ and never felt any thing half so much as the favourite air, "I wish to my heart me was dead."
Macklin once left the stage and set up a tavern and Coffee-house on a new plan in the piazza, Covent garden. At his dinners every thing was done by the waiters, on signs made to them by Macklin himself who acted as chief waiter. One night, being at supper with Foote and some others at the Bedford, one of the company praised Macklin for the great regularity of his ordinary, and in particular his manner of directing his waiters _by signals_. Ay, sir, says Macklin, I knew it would do, and where do you think I picked up this hint?--well sir, I'll tell you, I picked it up from no less a man than James Duke of York, who you know sir, first invented signals for the fleet. Very apropos indeed, said Foote, and good poetical justice, as _from the fleet_ they were taken, _so to the fleet_ both master and signals are likely to return.
Another time Macklin delivered public lectures. One night as he was preparing to begin, he heard a buz in the room, and spied Foote in a corner talking and laughing immoderately. This he thought a safe time to rebuke that wicked wit, as he had begun his lecture and consequently could not be subject to any criticism: he therefore cried out with some authority "well sir, you seem to be very merry there, but do you know what I am going to say now?" "No sir says Foote, pray _do_ you?" This ready reply and the laughter it occasioned silenced Macklin, and so embarrassed him that he could not get on, till called upon by the general voice of the company.