"The wiggy old party up in Cemetery Street? Let her go hang. You've swallowed her frizzes long enough."
Nance laughed and gave the older girl's arm a rapturous squeeze. "And you think maybe Mr. Reeser'll take me on?" she asked for the sixteenth time.
"Well, Flossie Pierson has been shipped home, and they've got to put somebody in her place. It's no cinch to pick up a girl on the road, just the right size, who can dance even as good as you can. If Reeser engages you, it's fifteen per for the rest of the season, and a good chance for next."
"All right, here goes!" cried Nance, recklessly, seizing paper and pen.
When the hard rolls and strong tea which composed their lunch had been disposed of, Nance curled herself luxuriously on the foot of the bed and munched chocolate creams, while Birdie, in a soiled pink kimono that displayed her round white arms and shapely throat, lay stretched beside her. They found a great deal to talk about, and still more to laugh about. Nance loved to laugh; all she wanted was an excuse, and everything was an excuse to-day; Birdie's tales of stage-door Johnnies, the recent ire of old Spagetti, her own imitation of Miss Bobinet and the ossified Susan. Nance loved the cozy intimacy of the little room; even the heavy odor of perfumes and cosmetics was strange and fascinating; she thought Birdie was the prettiest girl she had ever seen. A thrilling vista of days like this, spent with her in strange and wonderful cities, opened before her.
"I'll rig you up in some of my clothes, until you get your first pay," Birdie offered, "then we can fit you out right and proper. You got the making of an awful pretty girl in you."
Nance shrieked her derision. Her own charms, compared with Birdie's generous ones, seemed absurdly meager, as she watched the older girl blow rings from the cigarette which she held daintily between her first and second finger.
Nance had been initiated into smoking and chewing tobacco before she was ten, but neither appealed to her. Watching Birdie smoke, she had a sudden desire to try it again.
"Give us a puff, Birdie," she said.
Birdie tossed the box over and looked at her wrist-watch.