American plays had taken foothold, and this premier of a new one by an author of two previous successes drew a “typical first night audience.” Newgag, having abandoned all idea of making a hit, or of acting the part any further than the mere delivery of the speeches went, was no longer inordinately nervous. When he first entered he was a trifle frightened, and his unavoidable lack of prepared stage business made him awkward and embarrassed for a time. The awkwardness remained, but the embarrassment eventually passed away. He spoke in his natural voice and retained his actual manner. When the action required him to laugh, he did so, exhibiting his characteristic perfunctory smile. He received a special call before the curtain after the third act. He had no thought that it was meant for him until the stage manager pushed him out from the wings. He came back looking distressed. “Are they guying me?” he asked the stage manager. The papers agreed the next day that one of the hits of the performance was made by Newgag “in an odd part which he had conceived in a strikingly original way, and impersonated with wonderful finish and subtle drollery.” “What does it mean?” he gasped. I enlightened him. “My boy, you simply played yourself. Did it never occur to you that in your own person you're unconsciously one of the drollest men I ever saw?” “But I didn't act!” “You didn't. And take my advice--don't!” And he doesn't. Upon the reputation of his success in that comedy he arranged with another manager to appear in a play especially written for him. He is a prosperous star now. Whatever his play or part he always presents the same personality on the stage and he has made that personality dear to many theatre-goers. He does not appear too frequently or too long in any one place; hence he is warmly welcomed wherever and whenever he returns. He is classed among leading actors, and the ordinary person does not stop sufficiently long to observe that he is no actor at all. “This isn't exactly art,” he said to me, the other night, with a tinge of self-rebuke. “But it's success.” And the history of Newgag is the history of many. XXV. -- AN OPERATIC EVENING I _A Desperate Youth_