licy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He
domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.
Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this
undertaking.

Inside the room, Mr. Saltzburg wiped his forehead, his spectacles, and
his hands. He had the aspect of one who wakes from a dreadful dream.

"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If you please, once
more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"

"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.

II

By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals,
melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings
had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time
when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The
pleasant social gatherings round Mr. Saltzburg's piano gave way in a
few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more
strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the
famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white
hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew
actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in
years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed
daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had
bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to
success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite
of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost
miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his
business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed
to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner,
and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly--a habit which made
him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque
is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international
diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not
subject to revision as soon as your back was turned, and people
appreciated this.

Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the
ensemble were changing their practice-clothes after a particularly
strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who
complained that he made her tired.

"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my
girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't la