erminate social position in their
ship's company, between the forecastle, which was the chorus, and the
quarter-deck, which comprised Galbraith (you might call him the pilot),
the baby-faced man with the tortoise-shell spectacles, reputed to be the
author, two awesome intermittent gentlemen identified in the
dressing-room as the owners of the piece, and the musical director,
together with one or two more as yet unclassified. The principals, when
they should appear, would, Rose assumed, belong on the quarter-deck too.
The social gap between this afterguard and Rose and her colleagues in
the chorus, was not so very wide, but it was abysmally deep.
Nevertheless, the pianist, buoyed up on the wings of a boundless
effrontery, seemed to manage to remain unaware of it.

He had started rehearsals with this piece, it appeared, as a chorus-man,
and had become a pianist, thanks to the interposition of Fate (the real
pianist had fallen suddenly and desperately ill), and to his own
irresistible assurance that he could do anything. He could keep time and
he hit perhaps a third of the notes right.

The chorus liked him. The girls all called him Dave, seemed to
appreciate his notion of humor, and accepted his hugs and pawings as a
matter of course. But he took his jokes, his familiarities, and his
apparently impregnable self-esteem, upon the quarter-deck--slapped the
author on the back now and then, and had even been known to address John
Galbraith as "Old man." Incidentally, he hung about within ear-shot
during conferences of the powers, freely offered his advice, and
brought all sorts of interesting tidbits of gossip and prophecy back to
the chorus.

His announcement that Rose was going to be put into the sextette was
entitled to consideration, even though it couldn't be banked on. There
were three mediums and three big girls in the sextette. (Olga Larson was
one of the mediums and so needn't fear replacement by Rose, who was a
big girl.) Besides appearing in two numbers as a background to one of
the principals, they had one all to themselves, a fact which constituted
them a sort of super-chorus. Galbraith used to keep them for endless
drills after the general rehearsal was dismissed.

But the intimation that Rose was to be promoted to this select inner
circle, didn't, as it first came to her, give her any pleasure. Somehow,
as Larson told her about it, she could fairly see the knowing greasy
grin that would have been Dave's comm