Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/197

Rh Titles are as common as cafeterias and their linen sometimes as soiled in Hollywood these days, but not so in '15. Beerbohm Tree, I imagine, was the first knight to grace those shores. I had known him in London and the deference paid him as actor-manager of His Majesty's Theater. The British stage-door keeper tips his hat to the actor and the scene-shifter steps aside to permit one to pass. Once when I was playing in London an English actor asked me if I did not find this respect agreeable, and miss it when bowled over by the stage hands at home and greeted by the door man with an "Evenin', Cap", if at all.

"I do," I agreed. "But remember there are compensations. In America, where the door man does not tip his hat to me, I likewise do not have to tip my hat to the producer, as do you. It is a fair exchange."

Sir Herbert was anything but a snob, but I feared for his Old World sensibilities in the, at that time, rampant democracy of the movie lot. Accordingly I tried to prepare him for the reception he might expect, more particularly from the cow-punchers.

"They will have no thought of insulting you, but they will be startlingly matter of fact," I