“ ‘Don’t think they’ll quite accept you as me if you do that, m’boy,’ said he. ‘Eh, Holroyd? Eh, Barnard? Quonk? Try it again.’

“I tried it again, and didn’t fall, but I knew was I hopeless; I hadn’t found Sir John’s style and I was losing my own. After another bad try Sir John moved on to another scene, but Milady beckoned me away into a box, from which she was watching the rehearsal. I was full of apologies.

“ ‘Of course you fell,’ she said. ‘But it was a good fall. Laudable pus, I call it. You’re learning.’

“Laudable pus! What in God’s name did she mean! I thought I would never get used to Milady’s lingo. But she saw the bewilderment in my face, and explained.

“ ‘It’s a medical expression. Out of fashion now, I expect. But my grandfather was rather a distinguished physician and he used it often. In those days, you know, when someone had a wound, they couldn’t heal it as quickly as they do now; they dressed it and probed it every few days to see how it was getting on. If it was healing well, from the bottom, there was a lot of nasty stuff near the surface, and that was evidence of proper healing. They called it laudable pus. I know you’re trying your very best to please Sir John, and it means a sharp wound to your own personality. As the wound heals, you will be nearer what we all want. But meanwhile there’s laudable pus, and it shows itself in clumsiness and falls. When you get your new style, you’ll understand what I mean.’

“Had I time to get a new style before the play opened? I was worried sick, and I suppose it showed, because when he had a chance old Frank Moore had a word with me.

“ ‘You’re trying to catch the Guvnor’s manner and you aren’t making a bad fist of it, but there are one or two things you haven’t noticed. You’re an acrobat, good enough to walk the slackwire, but you’re tight as a drum. Look at the Guvnor: he hasn’t a taut muscle in his body, nor a slack one, either. He’s in easy control all the time. Have you noticed him standing still? When he listens to another actor, have you seen how still he is? Look at you now, listening to me; you bob about and twist and turn and nod your head with enough energy to turn a windmill. But it’s all waste, y’see. If we were in a scene, you’d be killing half the value of what I say with all that movement. Just try to sit still. Yes, there you go; you’re not still at all, you’re frozen. Stillness isn’t looking as if you were full of coiled springs. It’s repose. Intelligent repose. That’s what the Guvnor has. What I have, too, as a matter of fact. What Barnard has. What Milady has. I suppose you think repose means asleep, or dead.