"Oh, I say! Don't cry—we'll find something for you, never fear!"
"I'm sorry," she gulped. "I—I didn't mean to.... Only, I can't go home, and I must find something to do, and you'd been so kind to me, once, I thought—"
"And I will!" he asserted heartily. "I'm only trying to advise you.... I don't want to preach about the immorality of the theatre. A sensible girl is as safe on the legitimate stage as she would be in a business office—safer! But theatrical work has other effects on one's moral fibre, just as disastrous, in a way. It's lazy work; barring rehearsals, you won't find yourself driven very hard—unless ambition drives you, and you've got uncommon ability and mean to get to the top. Otherwise, you won't have much to do, even if constantly engaged. You'll get average small parts; you may be on in one act out of three or four. But even if you appear in every act, you'll only be in the theatre three hours or so a day. The rest of it you'll waste, nine chances out of ten. You'll lie abed late, and once up it won't seem worth while starting anything before it's time to show up at the theatre. That's the real evil of stage life: to every hard-working actor it turns out a hundred—five hundred—too lazy even to act their best, of no real use either to themselves or to the world."
He checked and laughed in a deprecatory manner. "I didn't mean to speechify like this, but I do know what I'm talking about."
Joan had listened, admiring Matthias intensely, but thoroughly sceptical of his counsel, to the tenor of which she paid just sufficient heed to perceive that doubts admitted would condemn her cause.
"I mean to succeed," she said in an earnest voice: "I mean to work hard, and I do believe I'll make good, if I ever get a chance."
"Then that's settled!" assented Matthias promptly. "The thing to do now is to find out what you can do with a chance."
He pawed the litter of papers on the table, and presently brought to light a typed manuscript in blue paper covers.
"This," he said, rustling the leaves, "is the first act of a play we're going to put on early in September. It goes into rehearsal in a week or ten days. There's a small part in the first act—a stenographer in a law office—a slangy, self-sufficient girl—you might be able to play. As I say, it's small; but it's quite important. It's the fashion nowadays, you know, to write pieces with small casts and no parts that aren't vital to the action. If you should bungle, it would ruin the first act and might kill the play. But I'm willing to try you out at rehearsals—with the distinct understanding that if you don't fit precisely you'll be released and somebody else engaged who we're sure can play it."
"That's all I ask," said the girl. "You—you're awful' kind—"