To those grouped together under the name ‘talent’, the atmosphere of a studio is not unfailingly bright — one fluctuates too quickly between high hope and grave apprehension¹. Those few who decide things are happy in their work and sure that they are worthy² of their hire — the rest live in a mist of doubt as to when their vast inadequacy³ will be disclosed.

Pat’s psychology⁴ was, oddly, that of the masters and for the most part he was unworried even though he was off salary. But there was one large fly in the ointment⁵ — for the first time in his life he began to feel a loss of identity. Due to reasons that he did not quite understand, though it might have been traced to his conversation, a number of people began to address him as ‘Orson’.

Now to lose one’s identity is a careless thing in any case. But to lose it to an enemy, or at least to one who has become scapegoat⁶ for our misfortunes — that is a hardship. Pat was not Orson. Any resemblance must be faint and far-fetched and he was aware of the fact. The final effect was to make him, in that regard, something of an eccentric.

‘Pat,’ said Joe the barber, ‘Orson was in here today and asked me to trim his beard.’

‘I hope you set fire to it,’ said Pat.

‘I did,’ Joe winked⁷ at waiting customers over a hot towel. ‘He asked for a singe⁸ so I took it all off. Now his face is as bald as yours. In fact you look a bit alike.’

This was the morning the kidding was so ubiquitous that, to avoid it, Pat lingered in Mario’s bar across the street. He was not drinking — at the bar, that is, for he was down to his last thirty cents, but he refreshed himself frequently from a half-pint in his back pocket. He needed the

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