"I guess that's it—you're all tangled up in your packing," said Ruth, with a laugh. "Truly, I don't mean to lecture, Alice, but you must go a bit slower."
"Not with this packing—I can't, and be ready in time. Why! you are all prepared to go. I'll just throw the things into my trunk and——"
"Now, don't do that. Don't throw things in. You can put in twice as much if you lay the things in neatly. I'll help you. But—oh, dear——!"
Ruth made a gesture of despair.
"What's the matter now? What are you registering?" and Alice used the moving picture term for depicting one of the standard emotions. The girls were both moving picture actresses.
"I'm trying to register dismay at the muddy state of those scout shoes, as you call them, Alice. They may be nice and comfortable, as you say, and really they do look so. And I have no doubt you will find them useful if we have to do much tramping over the hills of Oak Farm. But——"
"Oh, we'll have to do plenty of hiking, as Russ Dalwood warned us," Alice put in. "You know, there are to be several Civil War plays filmed, and they didn't have automobiles or motor cycles to get about on in those days. So we'll have to walk. And it will be over rough ground, so I thought these shoes would be just the thing."
"They will, Alice. I must get a pair myself, I think. But I was just wondering how you got them so terribly muddy. How did you?"
"Oh, Paul Ardite and I were in that Central Park scene the other day. You know, 'A Daughter of the Woods,' and some of the scenes were filmed in the park. It was muddy, and I didn't get a chance to have the brogans cleaned, for I had to jump from the park into the ballroom scene of 'His Own Enemy,' and there was no time. We had to retake in that scene because one of the extras was wearing white canvas shoes instead of ballroom slippers, and the director didn't notice it until the film was run out in the projection room.
"So that accounts for the mud on the shoes, Ruth. But I suppose I can 'phone down to the janitor and have him send them out to the Italian at the corner. He'll take the mud off."