The old man took uncomplainingly to the name applied to him by Bridges. He must have known what it implied, for surely he could not have mistaken himself for “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” His non-resentment was but an evidence of his good nature, for he was aware that it was not a very general custom of actors to give each other nicknames, and that his case was an exception.
When he was playing the insignificant part of the old family servant of a New York banker, in the most successful comedy of that season, he came to know Bridges better than ever before. Poor Yorick had little more to do in the play than to come on and turn up some light, arrange some papers on a desk, go off, and afterward return and lower the light. Bridges was doing the rôle of the bank clerk in love with the banker's daughter. Yorick and Bridges, through some set of circumstances or other, were sharers of the same dressing-room.
Upon a certain Wednesday, and after a matinée, the two were in their dressing-room, hastily washing up their faces and putting on their street clothes. Said the old man:
“Did you notice the pretty little girl in the upper box? She reminds me of—” here his voice fell and took on suddenly a tone of sadness—“of some one I knew once, long ago.”
Bridges, drying his face with a towel before the big mirror, did not observe the old man's change of voice, nor did he heed the last part of the sentence.
“Notice her?” he answered, with a touch of triumphant vanity in his manner of speech. “I should say I did. She was there on my account. I'm going to make a date with her for supper after the performance to-night.”
Old Overfield, sitting on a trunk, stared at Bridges in surprise.
“Do you know her?” he asked.
“No,” replied the leading juvenile. “That is, I have never met her, but she's been writing me mash notes lately, asking for a meeting. In the last one she said she could get away from her house this evening, as her father's out of town and her mother is going over to Philadelphia this afternoon. So she invited me to have supper with her to-night, and was good enough to say she'd occupy that box this afternoon, so I could see what she was like. Didn't you observe her embarrassment when I came on the stage? I paid no attention to her first letter. But, having seen her, you bet I'll answer the last one right away. Don't you wish you were me, old fellow?”
The old fellow stood up and looked at Bridges severely.