s and pictures
enough of his own. It was equally true that he was not stagestruck-not,
at any rate, in the usual acceptation of that expression. He had no
desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He
felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see,
to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out,
blue league after blue league, away from everything.

After a night behind the scenes Paul found the schoolroom more than ever
repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who never wore
frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes; the women with their dull
gowns, shrill voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions that
govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for
a moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them
that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a jest,
anyway. He had autographed pictures of all the members of the stock
company which he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible
stories of his familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with
the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, his suppers with them and the
flowers he sent them. When these stories lost their effect, and his
audience grew listless, he became desperate and would bid all the boys
good-by, announcing that he was going to travel for a while; going to
Naples, to Venice, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, he would slip back,
conscious and nervously smiling; his sister was ill, and he should have
to defer his voyage until spring.

Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the itch to let his
instructors know how heartily he despised them and their homilies, and
how thoroughly he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice
that he had no time to fool with theorems; adding--with a twitch of
the eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado which so perplexed
them--that he was helping the people down at the stock company; they
were old friends of his.

The upshot of the matter was that the Principal went to Paul's father,
and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at
Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper
at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley
Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's father not to see him again.

The members of the stock company were vastly amused when some of Paul's
s