Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/124

 over, and everybody talked as if the joy were in the talking and not in being heard. Yet after the first few minutes of excited blowing-off of steam, there came a lull, as if all had stopped for breath at once.

Into this lull, Dick Bordwell, the juvenile man, as he wiped the grease paint from his face, lifted his fine tenor voice in the first half of a queer antiphonal chant, by inquiring loudly above his four wooden walls toward the common ceiling over all:

"Who is the greatest leading woman on the American stage?"

"Louise Harlan!" chanted every voice on the floor, their tones mingling merrily, as if they were playing a familiar game.

"Right-o," sang Dick, and chanted next: "Who is the greatest leading man on the American stage?"

"Billie Stanley!" chorused the voices, with shrieks of laughter.

"And who," inquired Dick, with an insinuating change in his voice, "who is the greatest juvenile man in America?"

"Rich-a-r-r-r-d Bordwell!" screamed the magpies.

"Right-o-right!" echoed Dick, with a grunt of immense satisfaction; and then he went on piping his interrogatories, as to the rest of the company, desiring to be informed who was the greatest character old man, character old lady, soubrette, light comedian and stage manager, concluding yet more loudly with:

"And who is the greatest amateur heavy on the American stage?"

As if they had been waiting for it, the voices burst out like a college yell:

"John Hampstead! John Hampstead, is the greatest amateur heavy on the American stage!"

The spirit of fun and hearty good will with which this