"His voice gets wild again.
"'Lead 'em in where?' he says. 'Through the lobby? Do you want to buy 'em tickets at the box-office? Will you have orchestra chairs for 'em or will front-row balcony do? Now beat it up that alley to the stage entrance, you doddering idiot!' he says. 'You've held up this rehearsal two hours!'
"Say, I've made some fierce breaks in my time, but that was the limit. It goes to show what a sucker anybody is at a new game. But at that, a child would have knowed those dogs didn't go in the front way.
"When I gets on to the stage with the hosses, there's guys 'n' dames standin' around all over it. The chicken comes 'n' shakes my mitt.
"'Say, kid,' she says, 'you'll hit the street for this sure. Where have you been?'
"Before I can tell her, here comes the pale guy down the aisle.
"'Everybody off stage!' he hollers. The bunch beats it to the sides. 'Now,' says the pale guy. 'We'll start the third act. Pixley,' he says to the chicken, 'I'll read your lines. You explain to Daniel Webster his cue, lines and business for your scene. Charlie, hold those horses.'
"The chicken starts to wise me up like he tells her. I'm a jock in the play, 'n' I has one line to say. 'He'll win, sir, never fear,' is the line. What another guy says to me before I says it she calls a cue, 'n' I learns that, too. I don't remember much what goes on that first day. I gets through my stunt O. K., except what I has to say—somehow, I can't get it off my chest louder'n a he-mouse can squeak.
"'If any one told me a horse would win, in that tone of voice,' says the pale guy to me, 'I'd go bet against him!' He keeps me sayin' it over 'n' over till pretty soon you can hear me nearly three feet away. 'That'll have to do for today,' says the pale guy. 'Everybody here at two o'clock to-morrow. I'll have the lobby swept out for your entrance, Daniel Webster,' he says to me.
"I tries the back door fur a change next day and they rehearse all afternoon. I'm here to say that pale guy is some dispenser of remarks. At plain 'n' fancy cussin' he's a bear.