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SHOWMAN
plastered on my twitching face the first pair of whiskers it had ever met.
On I went. After my big scene the principals were taking their bows as usual— with a gap in the center of the line where Freeman always stood. I was sure I'd done fine although it wasn't likely anyone else thought so too, so I sneaked up-stage and hid in a dark corner. But Georgia Cayvan, one of America's famous leading women, came and rooted me out and led me into the middle of the line. "Take your bow, little man," she said, "you've earned it." I took that bow as big as the star tenor of a grand opera and I was Natchez Jim for the run of the play.
That made me an actor. It also gave me a swelled head that wouldn't have gone through a man-hole without shoving. As I strutted down the street in a new checked suit, black and white as a jack-rabbit, swinging my hand to get a feeble sparkle out of the infinitesimal diamond I bought when they raised me to twenty dollars a week, I must have been something to see.
When Campbell's company closed up, I was drafted off to Sacramento to help put on Campbell's plays in the company of an old-timer named Joseph R. Grismer. Not bad for a kid with just one season's experience. I was supposed to be the "utility-man" of Grismer's troupe. A utility-man in baseball is hired to play short, third, second or first and take a tour in the outfield on occasion. A utility-man in the old theater would have
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