THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS
advantage of making scenery here is that paint dries quicker than it did in the cellar of our dormitory.
I economized time by sewing costumes while the boys rehearsed. It was the most unimaginable sort of rehearsing. For the play was to be given in Turkish, of which Jeanne and I understood not a word. All the same with my little red leather-bound English Shakespeare stuck in the corner of the divan near my lapful of sewing, I was supposed to criticize the acting. I kept looking from needle to book to actor. Jeanne, on the other side of the divan, was following in a French translation. Hamlet and Ophelia dashed around while I put ermine on the king's coat. The boys would not listen to cutting. They were game for the whole play – not quailing before scenes that Irving and Terry could not swing. They have prodigious memories. We found that out when one of them memorized Herbert's entire lecture on the Rise of the
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