There was to be a last rehearsal immediately afterwards, so that he might take part in it; and there was a general unacknowledged anxiety on the part of all the actors as to how he would bear that crucial test on which so much depended.

I was becoming anxious myself, being in a manner responsible for him.
"You're not nervous, are you ?" I said, taking him aside when tea was over.

"Only act half as well as you did on the steamer and you will do capitally." "Yes, I am nervous," he replied, with a short uneasy laugh.

"It is enough to make a fellow nervous to be set down among a lot of people whom he has never seen before--to act a principal part, too.

I had no idea it was going to be such a grand affair or I would not have come.