"Right-o," sang Dick, and chanted next: "_Who is the greatest leading man on the American stage?_"
"Billie Stanley!" chorused the voices, with shrieks of laughter.
"And who," inquired Dick, with an insinuating change in his voice, "_who is the greatest juvenile man in America?_"
"Rich-a-r-r-r-d Bordwell!" screamed the magpies.
"Right-o-right!" echoed Dick, with a grunt of immense satisfaction; and then he went on piping his interrogatories, as to the rest of the company, desiring to be informed who was the greatest character old man, character old lady, soubrette, light comedian and stage manager, concluding yet more loudly with:
"_And who is the greatest amateur heavy on the American stage?_"
As if they had been waiting for it, the voices burst out like a college yell:
"_John Hampstead! John Hampstead, is the greatest amateur heavy on the American stage!_"
The spirit of fun and hearty good will with which this initiation ceremony had been performed was salve to the bruised, excited soul of John. Besides an ever present sense of meanness and hypocrisy from the concealment he had practiced, John had suffered a feeling of extreme loneliness that had at no time been so great as now, when, the strain of the play over, all these children of the stage were romping joyously together. Now they had included him in the circle of their magic fellowship. True, they had used the hateful word amateur, but that was in play, and he was sure they would never use it again.
And he was right--from that hour some of them who liked him showed it; some who disliked him showed that; some merely revealed themselves as cool toward him or appeared ill at ease in his presence; but never one of them, by word or act, failed from that moment to recognize his standing as a man entitled to all the free masonry of their unique and fascinating profession.
But the climax of this climactic night for John was reached when, descending the stairway, Halson honored him with an astounding confidence.
"Marien Dounay joins the People's to-morrow," he whispered excitedly.
"Fact!" he affirmed in response to John's look of sheer incredulity. "She's a spitfire and a genius. She can do what she likes. She's quarreled with Mowrey. She's coming here to spite him. Pie for us while it lasts, huh? She opens as Isabel in _East Lynne_."