Handy smiled. "Let him shave it off. Don't you remember that in Augustin Daly's theatre, in the very heyday of its glory, Mr. Daly would not allow any actor to wear hair on his face? Cromwell is too good an actor to hesitate to make so slight a sacrifice in the interest of art. Tell him I said so, Smith."
Smith smiled, and in a stage whisper said: "He heard all you said. Yes, Mr. Cromwell will shave."
"Then will follow Miss De Vere in one of her coon songs, after the style of Fay Templeton, May Irwin or——What's that, boy?" addressing a lad who approached the prompt table.
"There's a man back at the stage door, sir," replied the boy, "with a fiddle case under his arm, who says you have a date with him."
"Oh, yes! That's all right, my boy. Where is he?" and Handy walked back with the boy. "Is this Signor Collenso, about whom I have heard so many pleasant things?"
"Say, Mr. Handy, me name is plain Bill Cullen for every-day work, but for professional purposes in the music line I discovered that it pays to put on a bit of style, and that's how I came to ring in the Collenso."
"Quite right, my dear fellow! All artists of more or less great ability, especially in the musical line, make such alterations. For instance, Lizzie Norton is twisted into Mme. Nordica; Pat Foley changed into Signor Foli; and when Ellen Mitchell became great, she dropped the old name and Italianized it into Melba. Oh, that's all right."
"Yes, sir; I know all that, and there are others. But when you and I are talking, let us give the Italian cognomen a rest. Now, what do you want me to do?"
"What can you do?"
"Oh, something of everything—classic and otherwise."