"Betcher life. A man give me a ticket and four bits to sit in the gallery and clap everything."
"What—everything?" queried Lizzie.
"Well, everything our leader does. There's forty of us kids, all got gallery tickets free and fifty cents on the side. And say, when Miss Farnum comes on the stage, you bet she'll hear us yell. We got orders to raise de roof den."
"You awful boy," cried Lizzie, genuinely shocked. "Here, take the rose, but don't tell any one about your free tickets. Miss Farnum won't care to have any one know the audience is paid to clap her."
"Aw, quit kidding me," responded 735, moving toward the stage. "Why, we sees 'most all the New York shows that way for nothing. We get paid to clap, even if the show's rotten. Don't try to kid me, baby."
"It's wonderful what you learn when you go on the stage," murmured the horrified Lizzie, after she had chased 735 into the darker regions of the stage. "I wonder what's keeping Miss Farnum?" she added thoughtfully, as she returned to the dressing-room.
Weldon, clad in immaculate evening clothes, and accompanied by an unobtrusive young chap wearing a dinner coat, a gray vest, a gray tie and a small derby, strolled back behind the scenes to make sure everything was all right for the opening. This was really Weldon's most ambitious attempt. For years he had served in a business capacity with many stars, and occasionally he had produced things on his own account, but never before had his bank-roll assumed proportions which would justify him in leasing the exclusive Globe Theater. If the new production made good it would be the making of him as a manager as well. Consequently he was in delightful spirits.
His companion was a trifle more subdued, for upon his somewhat boyish face there was a cloud of anxiety. He was keen, alert, almost deferential in his attitude toward the manager, but a certain experienced air suggested that behind his youthful appearance there was dynamic energy and a fund of vitality which might burst forth at any moment. He was Phil Hummer, the press agent of the Globe Theater, a former newspaper man who, as he often expressed it, "quit writing for the papers because he found he could make more money as a press agent." For weeks he had been assiduously informing the public, through such newspaper mediums as he could persuade to print his effusions, of the importance of Miss Martha Farnum's approaching stellar début—for in the new play, be it known, Martha was being "starred."
A Broadway star! How often have you read of the wonderful luck of some obscure chorus girl, called upon in an emergency to play the leading rôle, and next day proclaimed a star! Pretty fiction it is. Once in a while it happens in real life, but very seldom. It is the alluring tales of the sudden elevation of choristers which attract and fascinate the beginner. The oft-told story of how Edna May rose from the ranks and became a Casino star over-night, has served as the guiding beacon in the life story of many a chorus girl seeking for fame; alas! too often in vain.
"Ready to-night for the stellar début of Miss Martha Farnum," cried Weldon, enthusiastically. "To-night is the night that wins or loses all."