“I get you,” says I.  “While you was makin’ up your mind what to say, some wholesale drug drummer with a black mustache won her away.”

It’s more complicated than that, though.  One of the chambermaids had a cousin who was assistant property man with a Klaw & Erlanger comp’ny, and he’d sent on the tip how some enterprisin’ manager was lookin’ for fifty new faces for a Broadway production; and so, if Cousin Maggie wanted to shake the hotel business, here was her chance.  Maggie wanted to, all right; but she lacked the nerve to try it alone.  Now, if Nellie would only go along too—­why——­

And it happens this was one night when Ira had overlooked a date he had with Nellie, and that while he was doin’ overtime at the boatworks Nellie was waitin’ lonesome on the corner all dressed to go over to South Bristol to a dance.  So this bulletin from the great city finds her in a state of mind.

“Course,” says Maggie, “you got a feller, and all that.”

“Humph!” says Nellie.

“And there’s no tellin’,” Maggie goes on, glancin’ at her critical, “if your figure would suit.”

“If they can stand for yours,” says Nellie, “I guess I’ll take a chance too.  Come on.  We’ll take the early morning boat.”

And they did.  Ira didn’t get the details until about a month later, when who should drift back to the Mansion House but Maggie.  Along with two or three hundred other brunettes and imitation blondes, she’d been shuffled into the discard.  But Nellie had been signed up first rattle out of the box, and accordin’ to the one postcard that had come back from her since she was now flaggin’ as Maizie Latour.  But no word at all had come to Ira.

“If I’d only bought that ring sooner!” he sighs.  “I’ve got it now, though.  Bought it in Portland on my way down.  See?” and he snaps open a white satin box, disclosin’ a cute little pearl set in a circle of chip diamonds.

“That’s real dainty and classy,” says I.

“Ought to be,” says Ira.  “It cost me seventeen-fifty.  But there’s so blamed much to this place that I don’t see just how I’m goin’ to find her, after all.”

“Ah, cheer up, Ira!” says I.  “You’ve got me int’rested, you have, and, while I ain’t any theatrical directory, I expect I could think up some way to——­ Why, sure!  There’s a Tyson stand up here a few blocks, where they have all the casts and programmes.  Let’s go have a look.”

It wa’n’t a long hunt, either.  The third one we looked at was “Whoops, Angelina!” and halfway down the list of characters we finds this item:  “Sunflower Girls—­Tessie Trelawney, Mae Collins, Maizie Latour——­”

“Here we are!” says I.  “And there’s just time to get in for the first curtain.”

Say, I expect you’ve seen this “Whoops, Angelina!” thing.  Just punk enough to run a year on Broadway, ain’t if?  And do you remember there along towards the end of the first spasm where they ring in that “Field Flowers Fair” song, with a deep stage and a diff’rent chorus for each verse?  Well, as the Sunflowers come on, did you notice special the second one from the right end?  That’s Maizie.