An interlude of play-acting now enlivened my period of free-lance journalism. Kay was in my life again, and the opportunity came through him. He had spent the summer between odd jobs on the stage, and odd jobs at buying and selling exchange in Wall Street. He made both ends meet, at any rate, and had a cheap room in the purlieus of Hoboken across the river. A part in a third-rate touring company had just been offered to him, and he said he could get me a part as well. One-night stands in the smaller towns of New York State with a couple of plays, of which “Jim, the Penman,” was one, formed the programme, and my utter ignorance of acting, he assured me, need not stand in the way. My salary would be $15 a week, with travelling expenses paid. Gilmour, the leading man, and organizer of the company, was anxious to find someone like myself. I jumped at it. Gilmour looked me up and down and said I’d do. I had only one line to say. I was a prison warder on sentry duty, pacing to and fro between the walls at night, when Gilmour, the hero, escaping from his cell, knocks me down after a brief struggle, and disappears into the night. A moment later the alarm is given; other warders arrive, find me wounded on the ground and ask which way the prisoner has gone. “That way,” I shout, pointing the direction before losing consciousness; whereupon the curtain falls. It was not an exacting part. Gilmour said I should make a “bully warder.” My own shabby clothes, with a brown billycock hat, would do as they were. I was to carry a large wooden pistol. We rehearsed the scene, swaying to and fro, breathing hard, grunting with effort, cursing each other fiercely, until the prisoner, wrenching the pistol from me, struck me on the head and floored me. Such was my rôle.