k through. The boys won't
dance with me, and the girls shut me out of basketball. But Professor
McCallum has been perfectly dear. He said right away that I wasn't a bit
too stout to be an actress. I'm not, either! Why, I weigh less than two
hundred, with my jacket off; honest, I do! He liked my voice, too. And
this was only my third lesson. Anyway, I'd just love to play Juliet, and
I mean to do it!"

Well, say, that was a proposition to give you a headache. I couldn't go
runnin' to Mr. Robert or the boss with any tales about Miss Marjorie.
That ain't what I'm on the payroll for. But I couldn't let McCallum play
a friend of mine for a good thing; so I just opens up on him.

"Why," says I, "he's a never was. Maybe he used to carry a spear, or
play double-up parts on the haymow circuit; but that's about all. He's a
common, everyday, free lunch frisker, Mac is. I used to know all about
him when I was in the newspaper business; so this is a straight steer.
He's just tollin' you along because he's had a dream that if he gets you
real stuck on yourself you'll come across with two or three thousand for
expenses and will be too tender-hearted to squeal afterwards. That's his
game, and all you've got to do to queer it is to send him ten and say
the folks object."

That's about the way I put it, drawin' it as strong as I knew how. Does
Marjorie see the point and heave up any thanks about my bein' her true
friend? Not her! She calls me impid'nt and says she's got a good mind to
box my ears right there. So it was up to me to calm her down.

"All right, Miss Marjorie," says I. "If I've said anything I can't
prove, I'll take it back; but if you'll follow me upstairs again for a
minute, and wait outside in the hall, I'll have a little talk with the
professor that'll settle it one way or the other."

No, she wouldn't do it, and she didn't want me ever to speak to her
again. I was too fresh, I was!

"Then I guess I'll have to send Mr. Robert up to engage seats for that
Juliet stab of yours," says I, makin' a play to move off.

It was a bluff; but it fetched her. She was willin' to do 'most anything
if I wouldn't tell Brother Robert; so back we goes up to the acting
school on the top floor. I left her leanin' up against the wall, right
near the open transom, and makes a break for McCallum.

He was right there, too. He's one of these short-legged, ham-faced gents
that's almost as tall when he's sittin' down as when he's standin' up