She encountered a very similar experience in the office of Mr. Jenks, only he varied it by saying at the close:  “If you could play at some local house, or had a program with your name on it, I might do something.”

In the third place the individual asked: 

“What sort of work do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?” said Carrie.

“Well, do you want to get in a comedy or on the vaudeville or in the chorus?”

“Oh, I’d like to get a part in a play,” said Carrie.

“Well,” said the man, “it’ll cost you something to do that.”  “How much?” said Carrie, who, ridiculous as it may seem, had not thought of this before.

“Well, that’s for you to say,” he answered shrewdly.

Carrie looked at him curiously.  She hardly knew how to continue the inquiry.

“Could you get me a part if I paid?”

“If we didn’t you’d get your money back.”

“Oh,” she said.

The agent saw he was dealing with an inexperienced soul, and continued accordingly.

“You’d want to deposit fifty dollars, anyway.  No agent would trouble about you for less than that.”

Carrie saw a light.

“Thank you,” she said.  “I’ll think about it.”

She started to go, and then bethought herself.

“How soon would I get a place?” she asked.

“Well, that’s hard to say,” said the man.  “You might get one in a week, or it might be a month.  You’d get the first thing that we thought you could do.”

“I see,” said Carrie, and then, half-smiling to be agreeable, she walked out.

The agent studied a moment, and then said to himself: 

“It’s funny how anxious these women are to get on the stage.”

Carrie found ample food for reflection in the fifty-dollar proposition. 
“Maybe they’d take my money and not give me anything,” she thought. 
She had some jewelry—­a diamond ring and pin and several other pieces. 
She could get fifty dollars for those if she went to a pawnbroker.

Hurstwood was home before her.  He had not thought she would be so long seeking.

“Well?” he said, not venturing to ask what news.

“I didn’t find out anything to-day,” said Carrie, taking off her gloves.  “They all want money to get you a place.”

“How much?” asked Hurstwood.

“Fifty dollars.”

“They don’t want anything, do they?”

“Oh, they’re like everybody else.  You can’t tell whether they’d ever get you anything after you did pay them.”

“Well, I wouldn’t put up fifty on that basis,” said Hurstwood, as if he were deciding, money in hand.

“I don’t know,” said Carrie.  “I think I’ll try some of the managers.”

Hurstwood heard this, dead to the horror of it.  He rocked a little to and fro, and chewed at his finger.  It seemed all very natural in such extreme states.  He would do better later on.