Mr. Mifflin

Mifflin belongs to the funereal little theatrical troupe whose disasters George carries with him to Marvis Bay, where he unburdens himself to the sympathetic Mary Vaughan. He is less a man than a running grievance — stiff, cue-missing, and hopeless enough that his name becomes shorthand for everything wrong with the production. His inadequacy gives George something to complain about, and complaining is how George first draws close to Mary, so the wooden actor quietly sets the romance in motion.