"In Russia I have been a tailor twenty years, and nobody saw that I was a great actor, not even myself. I met thousands of people. They saw me at work and at prayer. They saw me every week day and every Sabbath. My own wife in Russia has never seen that I was a great actor. And here comes a man I have never seen and who never saw me before and offers me tea and cake and gives me twenty dollars and a contract for fifty dollars a week, and who tells me I am a great actor! So of course I am a great actor.
"So this is a great country, I said to myself! And now that I am such a great actor, why should I have such a little store that don't even pay for coals in the winter? Why should I? Why? So I goes out to Mendel the waiter and he calls by the telephone a jobber and I sell him the whole store, and the shelves, and the show case, and the sign over the door, and even sell him the big lamp I bought on payments. He gives me two hundred dollars for everything. I know he cheats me, but what do I care! Am I not a great actor?
"And I go out and watch the great actor, Adler, come out of the theatre, and I see how he goes dressed up and with a high hat. So I say to myself, this is how you have to be dressed up. And I go in a store and buy a what you call, a full dress suit and a high hat and white shirts and collars and neckties and patent leather shoes. And I go to a barber and tell him: This is a great country and I am a great actor. And when I got up from his chair I looked almost like Adler. The hairs cut nicely and no beard, no moustache, no sidelocks.
"When I am through I go to the office of the movie company.
"When Mr. Cord sees me all dressed up and with no beard he gets terribly excited and throws me out of the office.
"What have you done with your beard and side locks?" he yelled, and he nearly wanted to murder me.
"And now I have to sit and wait until my beard and mustache will grow back. I am ashamed to go to the café house. The boss will laugh, the waiter and everybody will laugh, and with a high hat how can I go to look for work at my trade? And my hairs grow so slowly!
"What kind of a country is this?"