ecognized. But
it was a risk that couldn't be avoided, whatever she did.

She entertained for a while, the notion of taking Jimmy Wallace into her
confidence--he had as many depositors of confidences on his books, as a
savings bank, and he was just as safe. It was altogether likely that he
could get her a job out of hand. He was still on the best of terms with
the Globe people, and he was a really influential critic. But even if he
didn't get her a job outright, he could at least tell her how to set
about getting one for herself--where to go, whom to ask for, the right
way to phrase her request, which makes such an enormous difference in
things of that kind.

But she wasn't long in abandoning the notion of appealing to Jimmy at
all. The corner-stone of her new adventure must be that she was doing
things for herself; that she was through being helped, having ways
smoothed for her, things done for her. If she owed her first job even
indirectly to Jimmy, all the rest of her structure would be out of
plumb. Whatever success she might have would be tainted by the misgiving
that but for somebody else's help, she might have failed. Rose Stanton
who had rented that three-dollar room was going to be beholden to
nobody!

The news item in the paper gave her really all she needed. It told her
that a production was in rehearsal and it mentioned the name of the
director, John Galbraith, referring to him as one of the three most
prominent musical-comedy directors in the country; imported from New
York at vast expense, to make this production unique in the annals of
the Globe, and so forth.

They hadn't rehearsed Jimmy's piece, she knew, in the theater itself,
but in all sorts of queer out-of-the-way places--in theaters that
happened for the moment to be "dark," in dance-halls; pretty much
anywhere. This was because there was another show running at the time at
the Globe. She had looked in the theater advertisements to see whether a
show was running there now. Yes, there was. Well, that gave her her
formula.

When she asked at the box office at the Globe Theater, where they were
rehearsing _The Girl Up-stairs_ to-day, the nicely manicured young man
inside, answered automatically, "North End Hall."

Evidently Jimmy Wallace couldn't have phrased the question better
himself. But the quality of the voice that asked it had, even to his not
very sensitive ear, an unaccustomed flavor. So, almost simultaneously
with his answer, he look