“So that is the way you feel about your part, is it?”
“Yes; I haven’t liked it from the start.”
Havener drew himself up, and his black eyes glared at Dunton.
“Then, sir!” he exploded; “you are not capable of playing the part as it should be acted, much less a better part, like that given Lawrence! The trouble with you is that you have an enlarged head. I advise you to put it in soak and see if you can’t reduce its size. Get such notions out of your nut, or I shall have to put you onto juveniles. You will play the part assigned to you, and Mr. Merriwell will do his best with the part I gave Lawrence. That settles it, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
Havener turned away, and Douglas Dunton, furious over such a “call down,” gave Frank Merriwell a look of hatred, but remained silent.
CHAPTER XIII.
CASSIE, THE SOUBRETTE.
Frank was given the manuscript of the play, and he began looking the part over at once.
He had a wonderful memory, and he put his mind onto the lines in such a manner that he did not hear Cassie Lee, the soubrette, till she had spoken to him three times.
“I don’t want to bother you, Frank,” she said, “but accept my congratulations, and I hope you’ll just paralyze ’em to-night. Somehow I believe you will astonish ’em.”