“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....

* * * * *

I could hardly stand, from the weakness of excitement and exertion.

After the play was over—­

“Now you can give me the rest of the bottle.”

“We’ll drink it together ... to your success, Gregory!”

“Yes—­you devil!” I replied, fond of him, “you’d have had me reeling drunk, that last act, if I had listened to you.”

And I gave him an affectionate clout in the ribs.

* * * * *

Again the professors were urging me to become more “regular” and pointing out the great career that awaited me—­if I only would work.

There was some subsequent talk of sending the play to Osageville, Topeka, Kansas City....

But the faculty opposed it ... it would not be proper to send girls and boys out together, travelling about like a regular theatrical company.

* * * * *

As it had been said that I was going to take up the career of animal trainer,—­after my going into the cage with the lions—­so it was now pronounced, and reported in the papers—­Travers saw to that—­that I meditated a career as a professional actor....

* * * * *

Gleeful, and vastly relieved, Professor Dineen slipped me twenty-five dollars out of his own pocket.

Several fraternities showed indications of “rushing” me, after my star performance ... but my associations with the odd characters about town and the wild, ignorant farmers of the lower type that drove in each Saturday from the adjacent country, made them, at first, hesitate ... then utterly drop the idea....

* * * * *

Broke, I now wrote a long letter to Jarvis Alexander Mackworth.

I boldly complained of my poverty, inasmuch as it deterred me from my work.

“I have now proven my case,” I wrote him,—­“my poems have appeared in the Century, in Everybody’s, in Munsey’s....

“I have acted, as well, as a professional in a first-rate play, by a great European dramatist ... giving Kansas the distinction of being the first to produce Iistral on the American stage....

“Now I want to finish my four-act play on Judas.  To do so I must have enough to eat and a place to sleep, without being made to worry about it, for a year....