He strode to the centre of the room. "It's at the bottom--in the
muck! That's where it is. And it ought to be! What am I, out
there on that silly platform they call a stage? A fool, that's
all, making faces, and pretending to be somebody with another
name, for two dollars! A monkey-on-a-stick for the children! Of
course the world despises us! Why shouldn't it? It calls us
mummers and mountebanks, and that's what we are! Buffoons! We
aren't men and women at all--we're strolling players! We're
gypsies! One of us marries a broker's daughter and her relatives
say she's married 'a damned actor!' That's what they say--'a
damned actor!' Great heavens, Tinker, can't a man get tired of
being called a 'damned actor' without your making all this
uproar over it--squalling 'nerves' in my face till I wish I was
dead and done with it!"

He went back to the fireplace again, but omitted another
dolorous stroke upon the mantel. "And look at the women in the
profession," he continued, as he turned to face his visitors.
"My soul! Look at them! Nothing but sawdust--sawdust--sawdust!
Do you expect to go on acting with sawdust? Making sawdust love
with sawdust? Sawdust, I tell you! Sawdust--sawdust--saw--"

"Oh, no," said Tinker easily. "Not all. Not by any means. No."

"Show me one that isn't sawdust!" the tragedian cried fiercely.
"Show me just one!"

"We-ll," said Tinker with extraordinary deliberation, "to start
near home: Wanda Malone."