“Why, my lodge entertainment.  They’re going to give a play, and they wanted me to get them some young lady to take a part.”

“What is it they’re going to play?”

“‘Under the Gaslight.’”

“When?”

“On the 16th.”

“Well, why don’t you?” asked Carrie.

“I don’t know any one,” he replied.

Suddenly he looked up.

“Say,” he said, “how would you like to take the part?”

“Me?” said Carrie.  “I can’t act.”

“How do you know?” questioned Drouet reflectively.

“Because,” answered Carrie, “I never did.”

Nevertheless, she was pleased to think he would ask.  Her eyes brightened, for if there was anything that enlisted her sympathies it was the art of the stage.  True to his nature, Drouet clung to this idea as an easy way out.

“That’s nothing.  You can act all you have to down there.”

“No, I can’t,” said Carrie weakly, very much drawn toward the proposition and yet fearful.

“Yes, you can.  Now, why don’t you do it?  They need some one, and it will be lots of fun for you.”

“Oh, no, it won’t,” said Carrie seriously.

“You’d like that.  I know you would.  I’ve seen you dancing around here and giving imitations and that’s why I asked you.  You’re clever enough, all right.”

“No, I’m not,” said Carrie shyly.

“Now, I’ll tell you what you do.  You go down and see about it.  It’ll be fun for you.  The rest of the company isn’t going to be any good.  They haven’t any experience.  What do they know about theatricals?”

He frowned as he thought of their ignorance.

“Hand me the coffee,” he added.

“I don’t believe I could act, Charlie,” Carrie went on pettishly.  “You don’t think I could, do you?”

“Sure.  Out o’ sight.  I bet you make a hit.  Now you want to go, I know you do.  I knew it when I came home.  That’s why I asked you.”

“What is the play, did you say?”

“‘Under the Gaslight.’”

“What part would they want me to take?”

“Oh, one of the heroines—­I don’t know.”

“What sort of a play is it?”

“Well,” said Drouet, whose memory for such things was not the best, “it’s about a girl who gets kidnapped by a couple of crooks—­a man and a woman that live in the slums.  She had some money or something and they wanted to get it.  I don’t know now how it did go exactly.”

“Don’t you know what part I would have to take?”

“No, I don’t, to tell the truth.”  He thought a moment.  “Yes, I do, too.  Laura, that’s the thing—­you’re to be Laura.”

“And you can’t remember what the part is like?”

“To save me, Cad, I can’t,” he answered.  “I ought to, too; I’ve seen the play enough.  There’s a girl in it that was stolen when she was an infant—­was picked off the street or something—­and she’s the one that’s hounded by the two old criminals I was telling you about.”  He stopped with a mouthful of pie poised on a fork before his face.  “She comes very near getting drowned—­no, that’s not it.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he concluded hopelessly, “I’ll get you the book.  I can’t remember now for the life of me.”