trying to produce any illusion? What is acting?
And what is realism? Here are more problems for discussion at supper
under the stars and on the way to bed at four o'clock in the
morning--problems not easily solved by a company of gesticulating
freebooters who are for ever making raids, first into stage-land, then
into real life, and lifting incidents across the border into that
buffer-state where they lead a joyous life between the two.

CHAPTER XVIII--A YOUNG CRITIC

One day after rehearsal I had an appointment with a young man whose
acquaintance I had made the previous evening behind the scenes. He was
sitting on a packing-case, exchanging compliments with the head fireman,
and inquired whether I was looking for anything; finding I wanted a seat
he took me under his protection, scoured the theatre for a chair, and put
it for me in a corner with a view of the stage. There was only room for
one chair, so he sat on my knee and put his arm round my neck to keep
himself in place. He was absorbed by the performance, but, while the
curtain was down, had leisure to tell me that his name was Domenico, that
he was nearly thirteen years old and brother to one of the ladies of the
company; he was at school in the town and his sister had got him a week's
holiday and taken him to stay with her.

"And so they call you Domenico," said I, just to keep things going.

"No," he replied, "they call me Micio."

"Why do they do that if your name is Domenico?"

"Because they are all very fond of me. Domenico is my name as I said,
but Micio is a caress."

"I see; then may I also call you Micio?"

"Of course you may, and I hope you will."

He was very fond of reading and wanted me to lend him a story-book, but
_Tristram Shandy_, which was the nearest approach to a story-book I had
with me, was in English, so that would not do. Then he began searching
my pockets for chocolate, but there, again, he was disappointed. It was
to give me an opportunity of remedying these deficiencies in my equipment
that we made our appointment, and he was to do the bargaining. During
rehearsal I consulted his sister, which I suppose would have been the
correct thing to do in England, but she only shook her finger at him, and
he only laughed and played at hiding his fresh brown face and his curly
black head in her white skirts; she might as well have shaken her finger
at the scirocco.

The child put his hand in mine and avoiding the glare o