"'Oh, I am her Majesty's maid!
And her charms are beginning to fade,
I can sit in the sun
And look just twenty-one,
While she's thirty-six in the shade.'"
Myra made a graceful curtsey.
"Thank you, sir. You'll have to pay me a lot more of those before the play is over."
"Will I really?"
"Well, seeing as the Grand Hereditary One is supposed to be making up to her Majesty's confidential attendant——"
Miss Fortescue came pushing up to us.
"It is too ridiculous," she complained; "none of us know our parts yet, and if we have a rehearsal now—what do you think about it?"
I looked at Myra and smiled to myself. "I'm all for a rehearsal at once," I said.
CHAPTER III
A REHEARSAL
"Now this is a very simple trick," said Archie, from the centre of the stage. "For this little trick all I want is, a hippopotamus and a couple of rubies. I take the hippopotamus in one hand—so—and cover it with the handkerchief. Then, having carefully peeled the rubies——"