"Ah! I dare say," said he, satirically, "and I've no doubt you'll tell me that Macbeth, Hamlet, and Othello are your chief characters."
"Precisely so," I replied; "that is just what I mean to say."
"I thought so," he said. "My dear young man, you're stage-struck like many others at your age. All you youngsters, when you begin, fancy that you are going to leap over the heads of us old experienced actors with a bound; but in everything you must begin at the beginning, and you will have to serve your apprenticeship at acting as well as anything else."
"Serve my apprenticeship!" I muttered to myself, indignantly. "I, the son of a gentleman, serve an apprenticeship!"
But I held my peace, as it did not suit me to quarrel with the manager at the onset.
"You must content yourself at present with small parts," said the manager, "such as a page or walking gentleman, or, being yet very youthful looking, you might take a female part."
The latter part of the manager's speech offended my dignity, but I said nothing.
"Come," said he, "let me see what you can do. Give me your idea of Hamlet. Begin with, 'To be, or not to be.'"
I accordingly began at the well-known passage, and recited it all the way through.
"Not so bad, by jingo!" said he. "Bravo! I did not think you were such a clever fellow. Now do the dagger scene in Macbeth."