It is enough for
the story that he found his wife."
XXIV
NEWGAG THE COMEDIAN
It was not his real name or his stage name, but it was the one under which
he was best known by those who best knew him. It had been thrown at him in
a cafe one night by a newspaper man after the performance, and had clung
to him. Its significance lay in the fact that his "gags"--supposedly
comic things said by presumably comic men in nominal opera or
burlesque--invariably were old. The man who bestowed the title upon him
thought it a fine bit of irony.
Newgag received it without expressed resentment, but without mirth, and
he bore its repetition patiently as seasons went by. He was accustomed
to enduring calmly the jests, the indignities that were elicited by his
peculiar appearance, his doleful expression, his slow and bungling speech
and movement, his diffident manner.
He was one of the forbearing men, the many who are doomed to continual
suffering of a kind that their sensitiveness and timidity make it the more
difficult for them to bear.
Undying ambition burned beneath his undemonstrative surface; dauntless
courage lay under his lack of ability.
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