eight o'clock
_ Although the Bard delivered this truthful poem off hand , so to speak , in `` broken '' French , the cosmopolitan , polyglot audience `` caught on '' and `` shipped '' the Stratford `` poacher '' a wave of tumultuous cheers ! That very night at the Theatre Saint Germain the new play of Garnier , `` Juives , '' was to be enacted before Henry the Fourth and a brilliant audience . William and myself were invited by a band of rollicking students to join them in a front bench `` clapping '' committee , as Garnier himself was to take the part of Old King Nebuchadnezzar in the great play , illustrating the siege and capture of Jerusalem . The curtain went up at eight o'clock , and the French actors began their mimic contortions of face , lips , legs and shoulders for three mortal hours , and while there was a constant shifting of scenes , citizens , soldiers , Jews and battering rams , yells , groans and cheers , it looked as if the audience , including King Henry , was doing the most of the acting , and all the cheering ! A maniac would be thoroughly at home in a French theatre ! The play had neither head , tail nor body , but it was sufficient for the excitable , revolutionary Frenchman to see that the Jews were being robbed , banished and slaughtered in the interest of Christianity and the late Jesus , who is reported as having taught the lessons of `` love , '' `` charity '' and `` mercy ! '' The `` Son of God , '' it seems , had been crucified more than fifteen hundred years before the audience had been created ; and although `` Old Neb '' of Babylon had destroyed a million of Hebrews several hundred years previous to the birth of the Bethlehem `` Savior of Mankind , '' the `` frog '' and `` snail '' eaters of France were still breaking their lungs and throats in cheering for the destruction of anybody !