At the next theater she entered, Bobs had an unexpected and rather startling experience. Just as she appeared in the dimly lighted space back of the scenes, she was pounced upon by a man who was undoubtedly the stage manager.
“Miss Finefeather,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “What? You late again? Two minutes only to get into your riggin’.” Then giving Bobs a shove toward an open door, he called hoarsely: “Here’s that laggard, Stella. Help her and be quick. We don’t want any hitches in this scene. No time for explainin’. That, an’ settlin’ accounts will come later,” he added when Bobs tried to turn back to explain that she was not Miss Finefeather.
The man was gone and the leading chorus girl pounced upon her and, with the aid of two others, she was being disrobed. To her amusement as well as amazement, she soon found herself arrayed in tights with a short spangled overskirt. Resignedly she decided to see it through. Just at that moment a buzzer sounded, which seemed to be a signal for the entrance of the chorus. “Here you, Miss Finefeather,” someone was saying, “can’t you remember overnight where your place is? Just back of me, and do everything I do and you’ll get through all right.” The voice was evidently intended to be kind.
Bobs followed the one ahead, trying to suppress an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Who in the world did they suppose her to be? she wondered. The girls had divided into two long lines and they entered the stage from opposite sides. Bobs was thinking, “I’ve heard folk say it’s hard to get on the stage. Strikes me it’s just the other way. I jolly wish, though, I had some idea what I’m supposed to do.”
Roberta’s reverie was interrupted by her kindly neighbor, who whispered: “Gimme your paw. Here’s where we swing, an’ don’t forget to keep your feet going all the time. There’s no standing still in this act.”
Being in it, Bobs decided to try to do her best, and, having been a champion in school athletics, she was limber and mentally alert and went through the skipping and whirling and various gyrations almost as well as though she had been trained. However, when the act was finished and the chorus girls, with a burst of singing laughter, had run from the stage, the man whom she had first seen came up to her, profuse with apologies. He had just received a message telling him that Miss Finefeather was very ill and wouldn’t be able to keep on with the work. “You’re a wonder,” he exclaimed, with very sincere admiration. “How you went through that act and never missed so’s one could notice it proves you’re the girl for the place. Say you’d like it and the position’s yours.”
Bobs paused, but in that moment she seemed to hear Miss Merryheart’s one word: “Don’t!”
Roberta thanked the man, but said that her business engagements for that afternoon were so urgent that she could not even remain for another act.
Having learned that Miss Finefeather had been with them but a few days, Bobs, believing that she might be the girl whom she sought, asked for her address, and departed.
Her heart was filled with hope, “I believe I’ve hit the right trail,” she thought, as she hurried out of the theater.