“Good Lord! Eldon, who’d have ever picked you for a comedian?”
Eldon smiled at what he imagined to be sarcasm, and took from his pocket the little pamphlet he had carried with him for quick reference. He offered it to Batterson. Batterson waved it back.
“Keep it, my boy. When the other fellow gets here from New York he can play your old part.”
CHAPTER XV
The next night Eldon reached the theater in a new mood. He had been promoted. He still felt sorry for poor Tuell. The grief of the wife whom he had met at the train and taken to the undertaker’s shop where Tuell rested had torn his heart as with claws. He had told her all things beautiful of Tuell. He had wept to see her weep. He wept his heart clean as a sheep’s heart.
As Villon said, “The dead go quick.” Eldon was ashamed to be so merciless, but in spite of himself ambition blazed up in him. He was a comedian. Batterson had told him so. The house had told him so. Sheila had murmured, “You’re splendid.”
And now he was a comedian with a screamingly funny rôle. Now he could build it up. He had been working on it half unconsciously all night and all day.
The second night he marched into the scene with the authority of one who is about to be very funny. In his first scenes he delivered his lines with enthusiasm, with appreciation of their humor. He took pains not to “walk into his laughs” as he had done the night before, when he had not expected any laughs. He waited for his laughs. He was amazed to note that they did not come. His pause left a hole in the action. He worked harder, underlined his important words, cocked his head as one who says, “The story I am about to tell you is the funniest thing you ever heard. You’ll die when you hear it.”
It was the scene that died. A new form of stage-fright sickened him. Hope perished. He was not a comedian, after all. His one success had been an accident.
When the first curtain fell he slunk away by himself to avoid Batterson’s searching eyes. To complete his shame he saw that Batterson was talking earnestly with the new-comer from New York.