Don't pass axis handle unnecessarily from high level to low level plot functions. * scripts/plot/comet.m, scripts/plot/comet3.m, scripts/plot/compass.m, scripts/plot/contour.m, scripts/plot/contourf.m, scripts/plot/cylinder.m, scripts/plot/ellipsoid.m, scripts/plot/errorbar.m, scripts/plot/feather.m, scripts/plot/mesh.m, scripts/plot/meshc.m, scripts/plot/meshz.m, scripts/plot/pcolor.m, scripts/plot/plot3.m, scripts/plot/rectangle.m, scripts/plot/rose.m, scripts/plot/scatter3.m, scripts/plot/semilogxerr.m, scripts/plot/semilogy.m, scripts/plot/semilogyerr.m, scripts/plot/slice.m, scripts/plot/sphere.m, scripts/plot/stairs.m, scripts/plot/surf.m, scripts/plot/surfc.m, scripts/plot/surfnorm.m, scripts/plot/trimesh.m, scripts/plot/trisurf.m: Don't pass hax to lower level functions after newplot() has been called.

--- a/scripts/plot/stairs.m
+++ b/scripts/plot/stairs.m
@@ -164,8 +164,8 @@
 
   if (doplot)
     h = [];
+    hold_state = get (gca (), "nextplot");
     unwind_protect
-      hold_state = get (gca (), "nextplot");
       for i = 1 : columns (y)
         hg = hggroup ();
         h = [h; hg];