"'Oh, well, you may come back in a day or two, and if any one appears meantime who is short enough to march with you, I'll take you on.' Not until I had reached my office did I remember that the girl had not spoken a single word, but had won an engagement--for I knew I should engage her--with a pair of tear-filled eyes."
As a result of his half-promise, three days later, the young person again presented herself at the theater, and was engaged for the term of two weeks to go on the stage in the marches and dances of a play called "The Seven Sisters," for which she was to receive the large sum of fifty cents a night. She, who was later to be known as one of the great emotional actresses of her day, whose name was to be on every lip where the finest in dramatic art was appreciated, had begun to mount the ladder toward fame and fortune.
Very curiously and cautiously she picked her way around the stage at first, looking at the scenes, so fine on one side, so bare and cheap on the other; at the tarletan "glass windows," at the green calico sea lying flat and waveless on the floor. At last she asked Blanche:
"Is everything only make-believe in a theater?"
And Blanche, with the indifference of her lackadaisical nature answered, "Yes, everything's make-believe, except salary day."
Then came the novice's first rehearsal, which included a Zouave drill to learn, as well as a couple of dances. She went through her part with keen relish and learned the drill so quickly that on the second day she sat watching the others, while they struggled to learn the movements. As she sat watching the star came along and angrily demanded, "Why are you not drilling with the rest?"
"The gentleman sent me out of the ranks, sir," she answered, "because he said I knew the manual and the drill."
The star refused to believe this and, catching up a rifle, he cried: "Here, take hold, and let's see how much you know. Now, then, shoulder arms!"
Standing alone, burning with blushes, blinded with tears of mortification, she was put through her paces, but she really did know the drill, and it was no small reward for her misery when her persecutor took the rifle from her and exclaimed:
"Well, saucer-eyes, you do know it! I'm sorry, little girl, I spoke so roughly to you!" Holding out his hand to her, he added, "You ought to stay in this business--you've got your head with you!"