Mr. Beck then proceeded to unfold the great idea which had sprung up, full grown, in his brain.
"That man, sir," he said, meaning Henry Irving, "is a grand actor. And they are using him up. He wants rest."
"I was an actor myself once, and I've loved the boards ever since. I was not a great actor. I am bound to say that I did not act like Mr. Henry Irving. Quite the contrary. Once I was the hind legs of an elephant. Perhaps Mr. Irving himself, when he was a 'prentice, was the fore legs. I was on the boards for a month, when the company busted up. Most things did bust up that I had to do with in those days. I was the lawyer in Flowers of the Forest. I was the demon with the keg to Mr. Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle. Once I played Horatio. That was when the Mayor of Constantinople City inaugurated his year of office by playin' Hamlet. He'd always been fond of the stage, that Mayor, but through bein' in the soft-goods line never could find time to go on. So when he got the chance, bein' then a matter of four-and-fifty, of course he took it. And he elected to play Hamlet, just to show the citizens what a whole-souled Mayor they'd got, and the people in general what good play-actin' meant. The corporation attended in a body, and sat in the front row of what you would call the dress circle. All in store clothes and go-to-meetin' gloves. It was a majestic and an imposing spectacle. Behind them was the fire brigade in uniform. The citizens of Constantinople and their wives and daughters crowded out the house.
"Wal, sir, we began. Whether it was they felt jealous or whether they felt envious, that corporation laughed. They laughed at the sentinels, and they laughed at the moon. They laughed at the Ghost, and they laughed at me—Horatio. And then they laughed at Hamlet.
"I watched the Mayor gettin' gradually riz. Any man's dander would. Presently he rose to that height that he went to the footlights, and stood there facin' his own town council like a bull behind a gate.
"They left off laughing for a minute, and then they began again. We are a grave people, Mr. Dunquerque, I am told, and the sight of those town councillors all laughin' together like so many free niggers before the war was most too much for any one.
"The Mayor made a speech that wasn't in the play.
"'Hyar,' he said, lookin' solemn. 'You jest gether up your traps and skin out of this. I've got the say about this house, and I arn't a goin' to have the folks incited to make game of their Mayor. So—you—kin—jist—light.'
"They hesitated.
"The Mayor pointed to the back of the theatre.