His dresser hurls himself on the basket, as though he owed it
a grudge. He tears off the lid. He dives head foremost into a foam of
trousers, coats, and many-coloured shirts. He comes to the surface
breathless, having retrieved a shapeless mass of stuff. He tears pieces
of this stuff apart, and flings them, with apparent malice, at his
chief, and, somehow, they seem to stay where he flings them. The chief
shouts from a cloud of orange wig and patchwork shirt for a
soda-and-milk, and from some obscure place of succour there actually
appears a soda-and-milk. A hand darts from the leg of a revolving pair
of trousers, grabs the glass and takes a loud swig. The boy appears at
the door.

"Mr. Merson coming off, sir!"

"Right-_o_! and blast you!"

"No good blasting me, sir!"

From far away, as from another world, he hears the murmur of a large
body of people, the rolling of the drum, the throbbing of the
double-bass, the wail of the fiddles, sometimes the thud of the
wooden-shoe dancer, and sometimes a sudden silence as the music dims
away to rubbish for the big stunt of the trapeze performer.

He subsides into a chair. The dresser jams a pair of side-spring boots
on his feet while he himself adjusts the wig and assaults his face with
sticks of paint.

The boy appears again. He shoots his bullet head through the door,
aggressively. "Mr. Benson, _please_!" This time he is really cross.
Clearly he will fight Mr. Benson before long.

But Mr. Benson dashes from his chair and toddles downstairs, and is just
in time to slip on as the band finishes his symphony for the fourth
time. Once on, he breathes more freely, for neglect of the time-sheet is
a terrible thing, and involves a fine. If your time is 8.20, it is your
bounden duty to be in the wings ready to go on at 8.17; otherwise ...
trouble and blistering adjectives.

While he is on the boy is chasing round the dressing-rooms for the "next
call." This happens to be a black-face comedian, who is more punctual
than Mr. Benson. He is all in order, and at the call: "Mr. Benson's on,
Harry!" he descends and stands in the wings, watching with cold but
friendly gaze the antics of Mr. Benson, and trying to sense the temper
of the house. Mr. Benson is at work. In another minute he will be at
work, too. Mr. Benson is going well--he seems to have got the house. He
wonders whether he will get the house--or the bird. He is about to give
us something American: to sing and dance to s