“Yeou can’t tell abaout that. When he finds he can’t hurt ye in a fair way, he’s purty gol darn sure to try some other way. I wouldn’t trust him an inch.”
They left the post office and proceeded to the hotel, where Frank went at once to his room, failing to appear at supper time, as he was busy studying his part, and could not spare time to eat.
Alone in his room, Merry walked the floor and dug away at the lines. His door was closed, and he repeated his part, seeking to discover the proper manner to emphasize the different expressions.
Frank was thoroughly disgusted by the slovenly pronunciation of the average traveling actor, but the matter of emphasis, he had discovered, was given less attention than that of pronunciation. Indeed, many actors mouthed their lines so that the real meaning was utterly obscured, or the words were made to seem to mean something quite different from what the playwright intended.
As for gestures and poses, Frank knew that, on an average, twenty actors gesticulate too much for one who gesticulates too little. The absence of gesticulation is rarely, if ever, missed, while too many gestures are almost certain to be offensive.
Some actors seem to fancy they must do something with their hands every time they open their mouths, and they quickly become annoying to the audience. It is often the case that action is the resort of impotency.
Frank had studied since starting out with the company, and he had learned a great deal about actors and their art. He had found there were books that would give him much needed information, and he had not lost time in procuring them.
It was Frank’s hobby to know something about everything possible, and to know everything possible about the business with which he was connected.
It was this that had caused him to get ahead so rapidly in railroading, and, now that he was no longer employed on a railroad, he hoped to get ahead swiftly in his new line of work.
One of his books had told him that, “More than all else, it is an actor’s utterance that fixes his position as an artist,” and, meditating on the skill of the best actors he had seen, Merry soon decided that this was true.