rector. "He ought to say 'I _purpose_ to
send.'" We balked mildly at this. "All right," said our mentor.
"The trouble with you is you don't know any English. I'll send
you a copy of the Century dictionary."

This gentleman carried purism to almost extravagant lengths. He
objected to the customary pronunciation of "jew's-harp,"
insisting that the word should be "juice-harp," and instructing
the actor who mentioned this innocent instrument of melody to
write it down so in his script. When the dress rehearsal came
round, he was surveying the "set" for the first act with
considerable complacence. This scenery was intended to represent
a very ancient English inn at Stratford-on-Avon, and one of the
authors was heard to remark softly that it looked more like a
broker's office on Wall Street. But the director was unshaken.
"There's an old English inn up at Larchmont," said he, "and this
looks a good deal like it, so I guess we're all right."

Let any one who imagines the actor's life is one of bevo and
skittles sally along with a new play on its try-out in the
one-night circuit. When one sees the delightful humour,
fortitude, and high spirits with which the players face their
task he gains a new respect for the profession. It is with a
sense of shame that the wincing author hears his lines repeated
night after night--lines that seem to him to have grown so stale
and disreputably stupid, and which the ingenuity of the players
contrives to instill with life. With a sense of shame indeed does
he reflect that because one day long ago he was struck with a
preposterous idea, here are honest folk depending on it to earn
daily bread and travelling on a rainy day on a local train on the
Central New England Railway; here are 800 people in Saratoga
Springs filing into a theatre with naive expectation on their
faces. Amusing things happen faster than he can stay to count
them. A fire breaks out in a cigar store a few minutes before
theatre time. It is extinguished immediately, but half the town
has rushed down to see the excitement. The cigar store is almost
next door to the theatre, and the crowd sees the lighted sign and
drops in to give the show the once-over, thus giving one a
capacity house. Then there are the amusing accidents that happen
on the stage, due to the inevitable confusion of one-night stands
with long jumps each day, when scenery and props arrive at the
theatre barely in time to be set up. In the third act one of the