“My dear boy, for Heaven’s sake don’t talk about last week and the week before. Do let’s keep to one week at a time. We can’t go back to the Flood.” They had been accustomed to haggle and fight for every penny they got; to dodge and trick and bully for their money in a way that a sixty-percent. money-lender would rather lose principal and interest than resort to; to entreat and clamor for it like Italian beggar children; to hang about after the acting manager like hungry dogs after a cat’s-meat man; to come down to the theater early in the morning and wait all day for him; to watch outside his room by the hour together, so as to rush in the moment the door was opened, and stick there till he threw them, a shilling; to lie in wait at dark corners and spring out upon him as he passed; to run after him upstairs and downstairs; to sneak after him into public-house bars; or to drive him into a corner and threaten to punch his head unless he gave them another sixpence--this last expedient, of course, being possible only when the actor was big and the acting manager little. Fortunately acting managers mostly were little, otherwise the profession would have died of starvation. If, as sometimes happened, they left the acting manager alone, and went for the lessee himself, the latter would always refer them to the former, assuming for himself a magnificent indifference about such trivial things as money matters; and he would even play out the farce to the length of sending for the acting manager, and begging that gentleman, as a personal favor to himself, to let Mr. So-and-So be paid without further delay, which the acting manager would gravely promise should be done. If it had not filled one with shame for one’s profession, it would have been amusing to listen to some of the comedies nightly played behind the scenes. “Look here,” says the ghost of Hamlet’s father, suddenly darting out of its dressing-room, and confronting the acting manager, who, thinking the coast was clear, has made a dash down the passage; “look here, if I don’t have something, I don’t go on.” “My dear boy,” replies the acting manager, in a tone of suppressed exasperation mingled with assumed sympathy, and glancing furtively about for a chance of escape, “I really cannot. I have not got a penny. I will see you later on, when I shall have some money. I must go now. There’s somebody waiting for me in front.” “I don’t care who is waiting for you in front. I’ve been waiting for you behind for two nights, and I mean to have some money.” “How can I give you any money, when I haven’t got any!” This is the gist of what he says. The embellishments had better not be added here. Realism is an excellent thing in its way, but a Zola must draw the line somewhere. After this, seeing that the actor looks determined, he begins to fumble in his pocket, and at last brings out half a crown, and presents it--without compliments.