It was not his real name or his stage name, but it was the one under which he was best known by those who best knew him. It had been thrown at him in a café one night by a newspaper man after the performance, and had clung to him. Its significance lay in the fact that his “gags”--supposedly comic things said by presumably comic men in nominal opera or burlesque--invariably were old. The man who bestowed the title upon him thought it a fine bit of irony. Newgag received it without expressed resentment, but without mirth, and he bore its repetition patiently as seasons went by. He was accustomed to enduring calmly the jests, the indignities that were elicited by his peculiar appearance, his doleful expression, his slow and bungling speech and movement, his diffident manner. He was one of the forbearing men, the many who are doomed to continual suffering of a kind that their sensitiveness and timidity make it the more difficult for them to bear. Undying ambition burned beneath his undemonstrative surface; dauntless courage lay under his lack of ability. He was an extremely spare man, of extraordinary height, and the bend of his shoulders gave to his small head a comical thrust forward. His black hair was without curl, and it would tolerate no other arrangement than being combed back straight. It was allowed to grow downward until it scraped the back of Newgag's collar, a device for concealing the meagreness of his neck. He had a smooth, pale face, slanting from ears to nose like a wedge, and the dimness of the blue eyes added to its introspective cast. He blushed, as a rule, when he met new acquaintances or was addressed suddenly. He had a gloomy look and a hesitating way of speech. An amusing spectacle was his mechanical-looking smile, which, when he became conscious of it, passed through several stages expressive of embarrassment until his normal mournful aspect was reached. As he usually appeared in a sack coat when off the stage, the length of his legs was divertingly emphasized. After the fashion of great actors of a bygone generation, he wore a soft black felt hat, dinged in the crown from front to rear.