actors will, and
kneading the stubble on his fat chin.

I said to him quietly, "Siddy, what are we putting on tonight? Maxwell
Anderson's _Elizabeth the Queen_ or Shakespeare's _Macbeth_? It says
_Macbeth_ on the callboard, but Miss Nefer's getting ready for
Elizabeth. She just had me go and fetch the red wig."

He tried out a few eyebrow rears--right, left, both together--then
turned to me, sucking in his big gut a little, as he always does when
a gal heaves into hailing distance, and said, "Your pardon, sweetling,
what sayest thou?"

Sid always uses that kook antique patter backstage, until I sometimes
wonder whether I'm in Central Park, New York City, nineteen hundred
and three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteen
hundred and same. The truth is that although he loves every last fat
part in Shakespeare and will play the skinniest one with loyal and
inspired affection, he thinks Willy S. penned Falstaff with nobody
else in mind but Sidney J. Lessingham. (And no accent on the ham,
please.)

I closed my eyes and counted to eight, then repeated my question.

He replied, "Why, the Bard's tragical history of the bloody Scot,
certes." He waved his hand toward the portrait of Shakespeare that
always sits beside his mirror on top of his reserve makeup box. At
first that particular picture of the Bard looked too nancy to me--a
sort of peeping-tom schoolteacher--but I've grown used to it over the
months and even palsy-feeling.

He didn't ask me why I hadn't asked Miss Nefer my question. Everybody
in the company knows she spends the hour before curtain-time getting
into character, never parting her lips except for that purpose--or to
bite your head off if you try to make the most necessary conversation.

"Aye, 'tiz _Macbeth_ tonight," Sid confirmed, returning to his
frowning-practice: left eyebrow up, right down, reverse, repeat, rest.
"And I must play the ill-starred Thane of Glamis."

I said, "That's fine, Siddy, but where does it leave us with Miss
Nefer? She's already thinned her eyebrows and beaked out the top of
her nose for Queen Liz, though that's as far as she's got. A beautiful
job, the nose. Anybody else would think it was plastic surgery instead
of putty. But it's going to look kind of funny on the Thaness of
Glamis."

* * * * *

Sid hesitated a half second longer than he usually would--I thought,
_his timing's off tonight_--and then he harrumphed and