looked out of the
window, opened the door, but there was no one in sight. Well, no help
for it. She must try to get into the gown alone. She stepped into it
and became entangled in the lace; stepped out again, shook the dress
angrily and pushed it on over her head, giving a little impatient
scream as she rumpled her hair. Then she reached up and back,
straining her arms to push the top snap of the corsage into place. But
with the quiet glee of inanimate things the snap immediately snapped
out again. Flushing, Madame d'Avala repeated her performance, and the
snap repeated its. Madame d'Avala stamped both feet and gave a little
gasp of rage. She attacked the belt with no better luck. Chiffon and
lace became entangled in hooks, snaps flew out as fast as she could
push them in. Her arms ached, and the dress assumed strange humpy
outlines as she fastened it up all wrong.

She would like to rip the cursed thing from her shoulders and tear it
into a million pieces! She felt hysteria sweeping over her. She knew
that she was going to have one of her famous fits of temper in a
minute.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Madame d'Avala screamed aloud, stamping her feet up and
down as fast as they could go. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Damn! Damn! Damn!"

She did not swear in Italian, because she was not an Italian except by
profession. Her name had been Maggie Davis, but that was a secret
between herself and her press agent.

"Oh! Damn!" screamed Madame d'Avala again.

"Ain't it hell?" remarked an interested voice, and Madame d'Avala saw
a small pale face staring at her through the door which she had left
ajar.

"Come in!" she ordered, and a small thin boy entered, quite unabashed,
looking at her with an air of complete understanding.

"Who are you?" asked Madame d'Avala.

"Freddy."

"Well, Freddy, run at once and find a maid for me, please. Mine hasn't
come, and I'm frantic, simply frantic. Well, why don't you go?"

"I'll hook you up," said Freddy.

"You!"

"Sure! I kin do it better'n any maid you'd get in this helluva
school."

"Why, Freddy!"

"Aw, I heard you sayin' damn! You're in the p'fession,
huh? Me, too."

"You, too?"

His face clouded.

"Oh! And now--you have retired?"

"Yeah--learnin' to be a gem'mum. Lemme there," said Freddy, stepping
behind Madame d'Avala. "Say, you've got it all started wrong." He
attacked the stubborn hooks with light, deft fingers.

"Why, you can really do it!" cried Madame d'Avala.

"Sure! This ain't n