en Martin.

Of course to somebody _outside_ show business, wardrobe mistress might
suggest a yummy gal who spends her time dressing up as Nell Gwyn or
Anitra or Mrs. Pinchwife or Cleopatra or even Eve (we got a legal
costume for it) and inspiring the boys. I've tried that once or twice.
But Siddy frowns on it, and if Miss Nefer ever caught me at it I think
she'd whang me.

And in a normaller company it would be the wardrobe room, too, but
costumery is my infantile name for it and the actors go along with my
little whims.

I don't mean to suggest our company is completely crackers. To get as
close to Broadway even as Central Park you got to have something. But
in spite of Sid's whip-cracking there is a comforting looseness about
its efficiency--people trade around the parts they play without fuss,
the bill may be changed a half hour before curtain without anybody
getting hysterics, nobody gets fired for eating garlic and breathing
it in the leading lady's face. In short, we're a team. Which is funny
when you come to think of it, as Sid and Miss Nefer and Bruce and
Maudie are British (Miss Nefer with a touch of Eurasian blood, I
romance); Martin and Beau and me are American (at least I _think_ I
am) while the rest come from just everywhere.

* * * * *

Besides my costumery work, I fetch things and run inside errands and
help the actresses dress and the actors too. The dressing room's very
coeducational in a halfway respectable way. And every once in a while
Martin and I police up the whole place, me skittering about with
dustcloth and wastebasket, he wielding the scrub-brush and mop with
such silent grim efficiency that it always makes me nervous to get
through and duck back into the costumery to collect myself.

Yes, the costumery's a great place to quiet your nerves or improve
your mind or even dream your life away. But this time I couldn't have
been there eight minutes when Miss Nefer's Elizabeth-angry voice came
skirling, "Girl! Girl! Greta, where is my ruff with silver trim?" I
laid my hands on it in a flash and loped it to her, because Old Queen
Liz was known to slap even her Maids of Honor around a bit now and
then and Miss Nefer is a bear on getting into character--a real Paul
Muni.

She was all made up now, I was happy to note, at least as far as her
face went--I hate to see that spooky eight-spoked faint tattoo on her
forehead (I've sometimes wondered if she got it acting