A World Too Wide (Short Story‪)‬

Look at this face. I'm sixty and might be a hundred. I take off the make-up and put on forty years. Perhaps I should wear it all day long, like poor dear Micheal. I'd look a sight, strutting about the streets with the slap dripping off my dewlaps. Oh, that would make her notice me, I'm sure. I can just see her, laughing behind her hand as she does when old Adam's stammer comes on. Why wo-wo-wo-wo-would you be so fo-fond to overcome The bo-bony pu-pu-pu-priser of the humorous D-d-d-d-d-d-d-duke? The groundlings think he does it deliberately, he gets the only laughs in the show. Have to admire him, all the same. Imagine having a stammer like that and going for the stage. What was his mammy thinking of, all those centuries ago, when he was young and starting out? [sings] Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington ...