“No, we only came this morning,” returned Hopkins.
“And you ain't bin to the theatre?” continued Jim.
“No.”
“Nor moved much in—in—gin'ral fash'nable sassiety?”
“Not yet,” interposed Phoebe, with an air of faint apology.
“Nor seen any of them large posters on the fences, of 'The Prairie Flower; or, Red-handed Dick,'—three-act play with five tableaux,—just the biggest sensation out,—runnin' for forty nights,—money turned away every night,—standin' room only?” continued Jim, with prolonged toleration.
“No.”
“Well, I play Red-handed Dick. I thought you might have seen it and recognized me. All those people over there,” darkly indicating the long table, “know me. A fellow can't stand it, you know, being stared at by such a vulgar, low-bred lot. It's gettin' too fresh here. I'll have to give the landlord notice and cut the whole hotel. They don't seem to have ever seen a gentleman and a professional before.”
“Then you're a play-actor now?” said the farmer, in a tone which did not, however, exhibit the exact degree of admiration which shone in Phoebe's eyes.
“For the present,” said Jim, with lofty indifference. “You see I was in—in partnership with McClosky, the manager, and I didn't like the style of the chump that was doin' Red-handed Dick, so I offered to take his place one night to show him how. And by Jinks! the audience, after that night, wouldn't let anybody else play it,—wouldn't stand even the biggest, highest-priced stars in it! I reckon,” he added gloomily, “I'll have to run the darned thing in all the big towns in Californy,—if I don't have to go East with it after all, just for the business. But it's an awful grind on a man,—leaves him no time, along of the invitations he gets, and what with being run after in the streets and stared at in the hotels he don't get no privacy. There's men, and women, too, over at that table, that just lie in wait for me here till I come, and don't lift their eyes off me. I wonder they don't bring their opery-glasses with them.”