“It certainly is an honorable calling, and if you look good from the front you can always have your pick of the menu.  So that any dame that can hand out the frightened fawn glance need never starve.

“Ain’t it funny the way these Johns stick their noses to the ground and start on the trail of ‘the soldiers, villagers, etc.’?  They’ll pass up anything just to be able to stick their arm through the stage door and hand the doorkeeper a bunch of violets.

“They will leave Flossie, the belle of the village, waiting at the gate any time a burlesque three-sheet shows up on the side of the blacksmith shop.  And right down front, with their feet on the base drum, handing out the coy glances before the first curtain is a foot from the stage.

“Yep, I’m still rehearsing with ‘The Mangled Doughnut,’ and the author of the book told me yesterday, in the strictest confidence, that it will be the best first-night performance Hartford ever saw.

“He says he expects to stay up all that night rewriting the book, but he is willing to sacrifice a few hours’ sleep in the interest of Art.  And for the musical numbers, as we are rehearsing forty-two songs, some of them ought to go.  The only thing wrong with the show as far as I can see is that the prima donna acts like she was in a trance.  It is my personal opinion—­of course I wouldn’t have you breathe this to a living soul for worlds—­but it is my personal opinion that she sniffs the white.  She either does that or jabs, though it don’t show on her arm.  The leading comedian is a sad affair.

“He would make a good understudy for a morgue, and that’s about all.  Why, I offered him suggestions for some new business in his cafe scene and he went up-stage on the run and informed me that when he desired instructions from the chorus concerning the way to handle his part he would address me in writing.  I said to him:  ’Far be it from me to get gay, old top, but I would respectfully suggest that you get busy with the pen and ink.’  Then he was going to have me fired.  Such a chance.

“He had better find out what I know about the past history of the person who hired me before he hands out any lurid language about my dismissal.  I know right where I stand, and though I am one of the shop girls in the first act, instead of having my regular place as an American heiress, I know right where I stand every shake out of the box.

“Viola St. Clare is sure having the one strenuous time with her new husband.  The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry.  You see, they have been married but four long weeks, and the last three nights he has been coming home sober, and she believes he is deceiving her, so she is trying to get enough money from him so that she can hire a private detective to have him shadowed.

“They tell me that Sam Harris has to punch a time clock.  I know one thing, and that is when I am married Wilbur will not be one of the leading lights of the Knickerbocker, even if I have to prance down there and drag him out by the neck.  Gee, there ain’t much doing in town now.  Wilbur and a couple of friends are already running trial heats for the Twenty-three Club dinner, and if he ever recovers from that our engagement will be announced.  I am having the photographs taken now.