looking dark makeup for Macbeth's last
faithful servant Seyton. He didn't seem as boozy-woozy as usual for
Fourth Act, but just the same I stopped to help him get into a
chain-mail shirt made of thick cord woven and silvered.

In the third chair beyond, Sid was sitting back with his corset
loosened and critically surveying Martin, who'd now changed to a white
wool nightgown that clung and draped beautifully, but not particularly
enticingly, on him and his folded towel, which had slipped a bit.

From beside Sid's mirror, Shakespeare smiled out of his portrait at
them like an intelligent big-headed bug.

Martin stood tall, spread his arms rather like a high priest, and
intoned, "_Amici! Romani! Populares!_"

I nudged Doc. "What goes on now?" I whispered.

He turned a bleary eye on them. "I think they are rehearsing _Julius
Caesar_ in Latin." He shrugged. "It begins the oration of Antony."

"But why?" I asked. Sid does like to put every moment to use when the
performance-fire is in people, but this project seemed pretty far
afield--hyper-pedantic. Yet at the same time I felt my scalp shivering
as if my mind were jumping with speculations just below the surface.

Doc shook his head and shrugged again.

Sid shoved a palm at Martin and roared softly, "'Sdeath, boy, thou'rt
not playing a Roman statua but a Roman! Loosen your knees and try
again."

Then he saw me. Signing Martin to stop, he called, "Come hither,
sweetling." I obeyed quickly. He gave me a fiendish grin and said,
"Thou'st heard our proposal from Martin. What sayest thou, wench?"

* * * * *

This time the shiver was in my back. It felt good. I realized I was
grinning back at him, and I knew what I'd been getting ready for the
last twenty minutes.

"I'm on," I said. "Count me in the company."

Sid jumped up and grabbed me by the shoulders and hair and bussed me
on both cheeks. It was a little like being bombed.

"Prodigious!" he cried. "Thou'lt play the Gentlewoman in the
Sleepwalking Scene tonight. Martin, her costume! Now sweet wench, mark
me well." His voice grew grave and old. "When was it she last walked?"

The new courage went out of me like water down a chute. "But Siddy, I
can't start _tonight_," I protested, half pleading, half outraged.

"Tonight or never! 'Tis an emergency--we're short-handed." Again his
voice changed. "When was it she last walked?"

"But Siddy, I don't _know_ the part."

"You must. Yo