Jim ordered the cab to wait, tipped a ticket-seller and a messenger boy to ascertain the name and whereabouts of the heroine, who presumably had Frisky in charge, escorted Betty down a dark alley to the stage-door, cautioned her to call if anything went wrong, and leaned comfortably against a post to await her return from the inner regions.
They had agreed that it would be better for Betty to go in alone; but she wished, as she opened the door and groped her way up a steep, narrow flight of stairs, that she had still the protection of Jim’s unruffled, confident presence. She met two men on the stairs. One took no notice of her, the other tossed a “Late again, eh? You’ll be docked,” over his shoulder, and hurried on. At the top of the flight Betty halted aimlessly. Stage hands were busy moving battered scenery. A woman’s querulous voice clamored impatiently for “Daisy!” Then above everything rose a man’s angry remonstrance.
“Promised you nothing! You said you could dance, and you can’t. If you could, you’re good for a front row job, with that face. Oh, well,” in answer to a low-voiced reminder, “I never thought you meant it. That was my little jolly. Don’t you know jolly when you see it, little girl? Where’ll you stay to-night? Lost all your money? Well, I’m losing more’n I ever had over this old show. It ain’t my fault that you got lost this afternoon along with your pocketbook, and didn’t get here till it was show-time. Anyway I haven’t a thing for you at any hour of the day. If I was you I’d go right home to my mamma. Here’s two plunks—that’s all I can spare. So long, little girl.”
Betty stepped forward toward the voice just in time to be run down by a frightened, tear-stained Frisky, clutching two silver dollars tight in her hand.
“Miss Wales!” she gasped. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve got a carriage outside to take you home in,” Betty told her quietly. “So you won’t need that money. Let’s give it back and then go.”
At that the manager appeared, looking a little frightened, and protesting stoutly that he “hadn’t never promised the kid a part.” And when Betty didn’t offer to dispute him, he seemed much relieved and grew obsequious and effusive, so that Betty was glad to remember that Jim was outside. When they finally got out to him, past the bowing, mincing manager, Jim tactfully fell into the rear of the procession, and rode back on the box with the driver, so that Frisky, who was hysterical with humiliation and relief, might have Betty all to herself.
Her story was just as Dorothy had told it. After getting to the Junction she had experienced the same difficulty that Betty had in finding the elusive Pratt Players; but not having thought of a cab, and being without Jim’s effective methods of memory-jogging, she had walked all the afternoon, losing her pocketbook in the course of her wanderings, only to be told by one of her “encouraging” actor friends that he had only suggested her joining the company as a bit of harmless, pleasant “jolly.”
“I’d saved three months’ allowance, and sold my turquoise ring to Josephine Briggs for three dollars,” sighed Frisky. “What will Miss Dick say, Miss Wales, and what will she write home to my father?”
At the station Jim appeared with tickets and the cheering information that the next train wouldn’t go for half an hour. So Frisky, who had had a banana for lunch and no dinner, was persuaded to gulp down a sandwich and a glass of milk, while Betty thanked Jim so fervently that he took heart and boldly inquired when he might come to Harding to make the call he had missed in the pursuit of Frisky.