"Oh, well, you know what I mean!"
"No, it isn't quite that," laughed the director, "though you have very nearly hit it," and he took a chair near Alice and her sister, and near where Pearl Pennington and Laura Dixon were rocking and chewing gum.
"Tell us, and perhaps we can help you," Alice suggested.
"Well, maybe you can. It's about Miss Estelle Brown, the young lady who made that daring ride in front of the masked battery the other day."
"What! Has she left?" asked Ruth. "She was such a wonderful rider!"
"No, she hasn't left, but she threatens to; and I can't let her go, as she's in some of the films and I'd have to switch the whole plot around to explain why she didn't come in on the later scenes."
"Why is she going to leave?" Alice queried.
"Because she has been subjected to some annoyance on the part of a young man who is one of the extras. You know the extras all live down in the big bungalow I had built for them. I have a man and his wife to look after them, and I try to make it as nearly like a happy family as I can. But Miss Brown says she can't stay there any longer. This young man—a decent enough chap he had seemed to me—is pestering her with his attentions. He is quite in love with her, it seems."
"Oh, how romantic!" gurgled Miss Dixon.
"Miss Brown doesn't think so," said the manager dryly. "I don't know what to do about it, for I have no place where I can put her up alone."