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do tell them to let me see a doctor, or I shan’t be able to act at all on the first night.” And to crown all, the jovial bon-vivant sends a doctor’s certificate: cramp in the stomach. So there you are.

Let the truth be told: the actor’s trade is far more arduous than military service. So, if any reader is stage-struck (and in loco parentis I warn him most solemnly against this ambition), let him first test his powers of resistance and his patience; let him see

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