o would help her to take a start. If it's true
that she can make a hit as a dancer, it seems a pity that she shouldn't
know it, doesn't it? If she succeeded, she'd make a pot of money, and if
she failed she'd be just where she is now."

Travers considered this subject deeply, with knit brows.

"That's so," he said. "I'll tell you what let's do. Let's go see some of
the managers of those continuous performance places, and tell them we
have a dark horse that the Grahame Wests and Letty Chamberlain herself
and George Lester think is the coming dancer of the age, and ask them to
give her a chance. And we'll make some sort of a contract with them. We
ought to fix it so that she is to get bigger money the longer they keep
her in the bill, have her salary on a rising scale. Come on," he
exclaimed, warming to the idea. "Let's go now. What have you got to do?"

"I've got nothing better to do than just that," Van Bibber declared,
briskly.

The managers whom they interviewed were interested but non-committal.
They agreed that the girl must be a remarkable dancer indeed to warrant
such praise from such authorities, but they wanted to see her and judge
for themselves, and they asked to be given her address, which the
impresarios refused to disclose. But they secured from the managers the
names of several men who taught fancy dancing, and who prepared
aspirants for the vaudeville stage, and having obtained from them their
prices and their opinion as to how long a time would be required to give
the finishing touches to a dancer already accomplished in the art, they
directed their steps to the Hotel Salisbury.

"'From the Seventh Story to the Stage,'" said Travers. "She will make
very good newspaper paragraphs, won't she? 'The New American Dancer,
endorsed by Celestine Terrell, Letty Chamberlain, and Cortlandt Van
Bibber.' And we could get her outside engagements to dance at studios
and evening parties after her regular performance, couldn't we?" he
continued. "She ought to ask from fifty to a hundred dollars a night.
With her regular salary that would average about three hundred and fifty
a week. She is probably making three dollars a week now, and eats in the
servants' hall."

"And then we will send her abroad," interrupted Van Bibber, taking up
the tale, "and she will do the music halls in London. If she plays three
halls a night, say one on the Surrey Side, and Islington, and a smart
West End hall like the Empire or the Alham