The applause after the first act was wonderful.
"Great! You're great ... you've vindicated my belief in you entirely!"
Dineen was shouting, as he clapped me on the back, beside himself.
"Oh, I knew I'd do it!... I want a drink!"
"Here's some grape juice!" Gertie Black hold out a glass to me....
"No, I won't drink that stuff," I replied, with all the petulance and
ill-humour traditionally allowed a star.
A Sig-Kapp, whom I had got into the play as a supe, slipped me a drink
of real booze....
* * * * *
I had to run to the toilet three times before the second act, I was so
nervous and excited.
"For God's sake, keep it up!" urged Dineen.
"For Christ's sake, let me alone, all of you,--I know what I'm doing,"
this, as the elocution teacher tried to press home some advice....
* * * * *
During the second act I was as electric as during the first, but now I
allowed myself to see over the foot-lights and recognise people I knew.
I even overheard one girl say to another, "why, Johnnie Gregory is
handsome in that Van Dyke!"
"Yes, he has a fine profile ... he looks quite distinguished."
* * * * *
Before the curtain for the third act, Jack Travers worked his way back
through the props to my dressing room....
"Sh! I've brought a nip of something real for you, Johnnie!"
"Bill already has given me some. It's enough! I don't want any
more!--wait till the last act, and then I'll take it!
"I don't want it _now_! _Do you hear_!" I almost screamed, as he
mischievously insisted.
The bell rang for the third curtain....
The news had come for Iistral that his rich uncle in America had died
and left him a fortune ... now his family would try and have him
adjudged insane, in order to lay hands on the wealth for their own
uses....
That third act went off well....
"But you skipped a few lines in that act, Mr. Gregory," warned the
directress, concerned.
"Oh, let me alone, will you!" I returned, enjoying the petulance of
stardom to the full....
"Remember the fight-scene at the finish," she persisted, "just _pretend_
to strike with the shovel ... you might hurt someone!" anxiously.
"I am going to act the thing realistically, not as a matter of
stagecraft."
She tiptoed away. And I had the satisfaction of hearing her instruct the
boys who acted as guards, and who were to seize on me--in my moment of
physical exasperation--
"Grab him before the cue, just a trifle before it! I think Mr. Gregory
is going to forget himself!"
* * * * *
I swung the shovel high in the air, making at all my relatives, crying
out terms of reproach ... sobbing....
In the audience, everybody sat still with wonder.
The actors scattered from my brandished shovel, just as they would have
done in real life ... the directress had schooled them to crowd about me
so as to mask the action.
But the action needed no masking. It was real.
The two guards were on me,--boys who, in everyday life, were big
football men on the freshman team....
I fought them, frenzied, back and forth over the stage, smashing down
the pasteboard hedge, falling ... getting up again....
But, though the scenery went down, the audience did not laugh, but sat
spellbound.
I was finally dragged away ... on the way to the asylum, half my costume
torn from my body ... and I kept crying aloud ... for mercy ... for
deliverance ... after the curtain had long gone down....
"Big Bill" Heizer gave me a thump in the ribs.
"For God's sake, Mr. Gregory" (he had called me "Johnnie" always,
before) "it's only play-acting ... it's not real ... quit it ... it gets
me."
* * * * *
The audience went wild with applause. I had won Laurel's complete
approbation--for the day, as I had won Mt. Hebron's, that fall Field
Day, long before!
* * * * *
Travers had slipped me just one shot of whiskey before the last act went
on. He had tried to persuade me to drink more. He was in my dressing
room....
* * * * *