entirely lost."

(Yet Mackworth didn't know of the dirty trick that had been played on
me:

One of the boys from the school, running wild down in Kansas City, had,
with a curious sense of humour, given my name as his ... to the "girls"
in various houses of prostitution....

And "do you know Johnnie Gregory?" and "when is Johnnie Gregory coming
to see us again?" other students were asked who frequented the
"houses.")

"And what are you up to now?" asked Mackworth.

--"acting ... in Van Maarden's _Iistral_ ... leading role!"

"You look skinnier than ever!"

"I am taking the part seriously, and it's bringing me down. I like to
do real things when I get a chance, Mr. Mackworth ... and I am going
to make the two performances of _Iistral_ memorable ones."

"You need a new suit of clothes very badly."

"I know I do. But I have no money, and no credit."

"Well see about that, my young Villon."

Mackworth took me to one side and thrust a fifty-dollar bill into my
hand.

I hurried down to Locker, the clothier....

In a very little while I was again walking by the Bellman House,
completely togged out in new apparel from head to heel.

Mackworth was still standing there, and he laughed with astonishment at
the lightning-quick change in my appearance....

"You're a card, Gregory!"

He afterward repeated the story with gusto....

* * * * *

The day before the night of our first performance at the Bowersby Opera
House, Jack Travers, always turning up, came to me with a smile of faint
sarcasm on his face--

"How's the great actor, eh?"

"Don't be an ass, Jack!"

"I've got a good proposition to make for advertising the show--and
there'll be a lot of fun in it, too....

"Suppose we kidnap you, take you out somewhere in the country--then,
after a day or so--find you bound, in a farm house....

"Of course it would compel them to put off the performances for a few
days ... but look at the excitement; and the stories in the papers!...
afterwards you could go on tour through all the principal cities of
Kansas."

The idea fascinated me, in spite of myself....

"But how about Dineen? He'd go nearly crazy!"

"There's where a lot of the fun would come in. And to see the way Gertie
Black, the elocution teacher, would carry on!..."

But after a long pause of temptation I shook my head in negation of the
suggestion....

It _would_ be a lark, but I had pledged Dineen that I would g