I reached out for Him--and I did not know His name. I must pray though,
I must pray to something which stood for Help. Slowly, as I cast back in
my mind to find the name for it, I remembered Eversley. Eversley was
everything which any player might wish to be, and Eversley had been
kind. I would pray to Eversley. All at once there flashed across the
blank of my mind, his name in letters of red. That was it! That was the
name on the billboards! Eversley was in town. I recalled that Griff had
spoken of it. I hadn't been able to spare a penny for a paper for a long
time, or I should have known it. I would see Eversley. I got up and
groped around in the cupboard for a piece of dry bread and ate it. Then
I went back to bed and dropped asleep suddenly with the release of
tension. To-morrow I would see Eversley.
Griffin failed to understand my change of mood in the morning.
"You aren't afraid that I shall try to hold you?"
"No I'm not afraid."
"Or that anybody will find it out?"
"I shouldn't care if they did," I told him. "I'm going to see Eversley.
I suppose it's fair to tell you, you'll be the last resort, Griff."
"I'll be the foundation of your fortune, if Eversley will let me, but he
won't." I think there was regret in his voice, but it was never in
anything he said to me.
"I know you're not mean, Griff; that's why I told you."
"Oh, I'll tell you, too. I was mean once; I didn't mean to be, but it
turned out that way." He was on the point of admitting something to me
that I felt if I was to depend upon him I shouldn't hear.
I got out as early as possible and walked until I found a billboard.
Eversley was at the Playhouse; he had been playing here for three days.
I walked past it several times considering the possibility of getting
his address from the stage doorman, though I knew I couldn't.
It was clear and bright, few people moved in the street. I walked
between the alleyways and a row of ash-cans waiting for the belated
carts of the cleaners. "Eversley, Eversley!" I called over and over as
if it had been a charm. Suddenly in the still cold brightness, a torn
fragment of newspaper flapped in the ash-can, it lifted and made a
clumsy flight like a half-fledged bird and dropped beside me. Its one
torn wing flapped gently as I passed it, and showed me part of a
pictured face. I said to myself that I was in a pretty state when even
a torn face in a paper looked like Eversley. I had gone on three steps,
and suddenly I stopped. It was Eversley, of course; his picture would be
in the papers. I went back and lifted the printed scrap. It was part of
an interview with the great tragedian, three days old, and it told me
the address of his hotel.
It was nearly eleven when I arrived there. The foyer was crowded with
people among whom I fancied I recognized several of my profession. They
had the same desperate air that I knew must stand out on me. I thought
the clerk recognized it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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