turn at a 14th-st.
continuous house, fillin' in between the trained pig and the strong
lady; but he wanted as much type set about himself as if he'd been Dave
Warfield.

When he couldn't get next to anybody else, he used to give me the
earache tellin' of the times when he played stock in one of Daly's road
comp'nies, and how he had to quit because John Drew was jealous of him.
Then he'd leave his stuff with me and I'd promise to sneak it into the
dramatic notes the first time I found the forms unlocked.

And to think of a hamfatter like McCallum, who's come back from Buffalo
on a brake beam so often that he always sleeps with one arm crooked
around the bedpost, havin' the nerve to call himself a school of
dramatic art! Course, I didn't think Marjorie was so easy as to fall for
a fake like that. She must be stringin' him.

But the minute I see her come out I knew she'd swallowed the hook. I'd
dropped back into the far end of the hall, where it was dark; but as she
walks under the skylight I sees the pleased look on her face, like she
was havin' a view of her lithographs on all the gold frames in the
subway. I waits until McCallum shuts himself in to throw bouquets at his
picture in the glass, and then I slips down just in time to catch
Marjorie as she's climbin' into the carriage.

"Is this the lady that's entered for the heavyweight Juliet
championship?" says I, tryin' to break the news to her gentle.

It shook her up a good deal, just the same. Her face gets the color of
an auction flag, and she jounces down on the seat in a way that makes
the springs flat out like bed slats.

"Why, Torchy!" says she. "Where did you come from, and what do you
mean?"

"Oh, I've taken out a butt-in license," says I. "I'm on, Miss Ellins. I
wa'n't invited to the rehearsal; but I was there."

"Listening outside?" says she.

"Uh-huh," says I.

"Oh, Torchy!" says she. "Did you hear how lovely the professor talked of
the way I did it?"

"About your havin' Julia Marlowe sewed in a sack? Sure thing," says I.

"But you mustn't tell anyone," says she.

"I wouldn't want the job," says I. "I can draw a diagram of the riot
there'll be when mommer and popper get the bulletin."

"I don't care," says Marjorie. "They never want me to do anything. It's
always, 'Oh, Marjorie, you're too big.' In summer I can't go bathing
because they say I'm a sight in a bathing suit, and in winter they won't
let me skate because they're afraid I'll brea