inanimate things the snap immediately snapped out again.  Flushing, Madame d’Avala repeated her performance, and the snap repeated its.  Madame d’Avala stamped both feet and gave a little gasp of rage.  She attacked the belt with no better luck.  Chiffon and lace became entangled in hooks, snaps flew out as fast as she could push them in.  Her arms ached, and the dress assumed strange humpy outlines as she fastened it up all wrong.

She would like to rip the cursed thing from her shoulders and tear it into a million pieces!  She felt hysteria sweeping over her.  She knew that she was going to have one of her famous fits of temper in a minute.

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” Madame d’Avala screamed aloud, stamping her feet up and down as fast as they could go.  “Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  Damn!  Damn!  Damn!”

She did not swear in Italian, because she was not an Italian except by profession.  Her name had been Maggie Davis, but that was a secret between herself and her press agent.

“Oh!  Damn!” screamed Madame d’Avala again.

“Ain’t it hell?” remarked an interested voice, and Madame d’Avala saw a small pale face staring at her through the door which she had left ajar.

“Come in!” she ordered, and a small thin boy entered, quite unabashed, looking at her with an air of complete understanding.

“Who are you?” asked Madame d’Avala.

“Freddy.”

“Well, Freddy, run at once and find a maid for me, please.  Mine hasn’t come, and I’m frantic, simply frantic.  Well, why don’t you go?”

“I’ll hook you up,” said Freddy.

“You!”

“Sure!  I kin do it better’n any maid you’d get in this helluva school.”

“Why, Freddy!”

“Aw, I heard you sayin’ damn!  You’re in the p’fession, huh?  Me, too.”

“You, too?”

His face clouded.

“Oh!  And now—­you have retired?”

“Yeah—­learnin’ to be a gem’mum.  Lemme there,” said Freddy, stepping behind Madame d’Avala.  “Say, you’ve got it all started wrong.”  He attacked the stubborn hooks with light, deft fingers.

“Why, you can really do it!” cried Madame d’Avala.

“Sure!  This ain’t nothin’.”  Freddy’s fingers flew.

“Careful of that drapery.  It’s tricky.”

“Say, drapery’s pie to me.  I fastened up lots harder dresses than this.”

“Really?”

“Sure!  Florette had swell clo’es.  This’n’s swell, too.  My! ain’t it great to see a classy gown again!”

Madame d’Avala laughed and Freddy joined her.

“Say, you seen the teachers at this school?” he asked.  “You seen ’em?”

Madame d’Avala nodded.

“Nice ladies,” said Freddy in an effort to be fair.  “But no class—­you know what I mean.  Way they slick their hair back, an’ no paint or powder.  Gee, Florette wouldn’t wear their clo’es to a dog fight!”

“Nor I,” said Madame d’Avala; “I love dogs.”