"He could dance, though," says Miss Joyce, as she gets busy with her pencil again.
Then a few weeks later I was handed my big jolt. We was gettin' out a special report for the directors' meetin' one day after lunch when right in the middle of a table of costs Miss Joyce glances anxious at the clock and drops her note book.
"I'm so sorry," says she, "but couldn't we finish this tomorrow morning?"
"Why, I suppose we might," says I, "if it's anything important."
"It is," says she. "If I'm not there by 3 o'clock the stage manager will not see me at all, and I do so want to land an engagement this time."
"Eh?" says I gawpin'. "Stage manager! You?"
"Why, yes," says she. "You see, I tried once before. I was almost taken on, too. They liked my voice, they said, but I wasn't up on my dancing. So I've been taking lessons of a ballet master. Frightfully expensive. That's where all my money has gone. But I think they'll give me a chance this time. It's for the chorus of that new 'Tut! Tut! Marie' thing, you know, and they've advertised for fifty girls."
I suppose I must have let loose a gasp. This meek, modest young thing, who looked like she wouldn't know a lip-stick from a boiled carrot, plannin' cold-blooded to throw up a nice respectable job and enter herself in the squab market! Why, I wouldn't have been jarred more if Piddie had announced that next season he was going to do bareback ridin' for some circus.
"Excuse me, Miss Joyce," says I, "but I wouldn't say you was just the kind they'd take on."
"Oh, they take all kinds," says she.