“Let me try it, Mr. Burke.” It was the Montague girl still in her gipsy costume. She had been standing quietly in the shadow observing the ineffective practice.
“Hello, Flips! Sure, you can try it. Show these boys something good, now. Here, Al, give Miss Montague that stickeree of yours.” Al seemed glad to relinquish the weapon. Miss Montague hefted it, and looked doubtful.
“It ain’t balanced right,” she declared. “Haven’t you got one with a heavier handle?”
“Fair enough,” said the director. “Hey, Pickles, let her try that one you got.” Pickles, too, was not unwilling to oblige.
“That’s better,” said the girl. “It’s balanced right.” Taking the blade by its point between thumb and forefinger she sent it with a quick flick of the wrist into the wall a dozen feet away. It hung there quivering.
“There! That’s what we want. It’s got to be quivering when Jack shoots at Ramon who threw it at him as he leaps through the window. Try it again, Flips.” The girl obliged and bowed impressively to the applause.
“Now come here and try it through the doorway.” He led her around the set. “Now stand here and see can you put it into the wall just to the right of the window. Good! Some little knife-thrower, I’ll say. Now try it once with Jack coming through. Get set, Jack.”
Jack made his way to the window through which he was to leap. He paused there to look in with some concern. “Say, Mr. Burke, will you please make sure she understands? She isn’t to let go of that thing until I’m in and crouched down ready to shoot—understand what I mean? I don’t want to get nicked nor nothing.”
“All right, all right! She understands.”
Jack leaped through the window to a crouch, weapon in hand. The knife quivered in the wall above him as he shot.