He strode to the centre of the room. “It's at the bottom--in the muck! That's where it is. And it ought to be! What am I, out there on that silly platform they call a stage? A fool, that's all, making faces, and pretending to be somebody with another name, for two dollars! A monkey-on-a-stick for the children! Of course the world despises us! Why shouldn't it? It calls us mummers and mountebanks, and that's what we are! Buffoons! We aren't men and women at all--we're strolling players! We're gypsies! One of us marries a broker's daughter and her relatives say she's married 'a damned actor!' That's what they say--'a damned actor!' Great heavens, Tinker, can't a man get tired of being called a 'damned actor' without your making all this uproar over it--squalling 'nerves' in my face till I wish I was dead and done with it!” He went back to the fireplace again, but omitted another dolorous stroke upon the mantel. “And look at the women in the profession,” he continued, as he turned to face his visitors. “My soul! Look at them! Nothing but sawdust--sawdust--sawdust! Do you expect to go on acting with sawdust? Making sawdust love with sawdust? Sawdust, I tell you! Sawdust--sawdust--saw--” “Oh, no,” said Tinker easily. “Not all. Not by any means. No.” “Show me one that isn't sawdust!” the tragedian cried fiercely. “Show me just one!” “We-ll,” said Tinker with extraordinary deliberation, “to start near home: Wanda Malone.” Potter burst into terrible laughter. “All sawdust! That's why I discharged her this afternoon.” “You what?” Canby shouted incredulously. “I dismissed her from my company,” said Potter with a startling change to icy calmness. “I dismissed her from my company this afternoon.” Old Tinker leaned forward. “You didn't!” Potter's iciness increased. “Shall I repeat it? I was obliged to dismiss Miss Wanda Malone from my company, this afternoon, after rehearsal.” “Why?” Canby gasped. “Because,” said Potter, with the same calmness, “she has an utterly commonplace mind.” Canby rose in agitation, quite unable, for that moment, to speak; but Tinker, still leaning forward, gazing intently at the face of the actor, made a low, long-drawn sound of wonder and affirmation, the slow exclamation of a man comprehending what amazes him. “So that's it!” “Besides being intensely ordinary,” said Potter, with superiority, “I discovered that she is deceitful. That had nothing whatever to do with my decision to leave the stage.” He whirled upon Tinker suddenly, and shouted: “No matter what you think!” “No,” said Tinker. “No matter.” Potter laughed. “Talbot Potter leaves the stage because a little 'ingenue' understudy tries to break the rules of his company! Likely, isn't it?” “Looks so,” said old Tinker.