That night, according to programme, John went back to Los Angeles; and a few weeks later, also according to programme, he was again in San Francisco, no longer a railroad man, but—in his thought—an actor.
Now calling oneself an actor and being one are quite different; but it took an experience to prove this to John. Even the opportunity for this experience was itself hard to get. It was days before he even saw a theatrical manager, weeks before he met one personally, and a month before he got his first engagement.
When he talked of the drama to actors the way he had talked of it to the Reverend Charles Thompson Campbell, they did not comprehend him; when he talked to them as he had to Scofield, they smiled cynically; when he admitted to one manager that he was without professional experience, the admission drew a sneer which froze the stream of hope in his breast.
John thereafter told no other manager this, but learned instead the value of a "front", and inserted in the professional columns of the San Francisco Dramatic Review a card which read:
John Hampstead
heavy
at liberty
"Heavy" in theatrical parlance means the villain. Modestly confessing himself not quite equal to "leads",
