's just it, Miss Vail. I'm not
rehearsing. It's--that's how it is with me. That's why I knew I
could get by with the part. I thought if we got good bookings, why,
I'd be fixed to take a good long rest, afterwards,--out on the desert
or up in the snow. It isn't bad, yet. They tell me I've got a great
chance." Then his chin quivered. "That's why it kind of hits me right
where I live, having this thing go on the rocks."

"It mustn't," I said. "It can't! We won't let it!" I knew it was only
a miracle that could save us, in that breathlessly short time, but I
have a vigorous belief in miracles. "There must be a man and a girl,
somewhere----"

Then the lean, silent brother of BROTHER spoke. "I don't suppose
you'd give me a whack at it, would you? I've learned every word of
the whole 'script, watching every day the way I have. I can do it. I
can do it if you'll let me. I don't think that fellow ever had your
idea of it. Look,--the part where THE HAWK tells her what a rotten
deal he's always had, isn't this how you meant it?"--and he dropped
into a chair, took a knee between his brown, lean hands, looked off
into the empty theater for a moment--and then, Sally, he read the
lines as I'd written them. Instantly, I was happier than I'd been
since I tore the final page out of the typewriter, visualizing the
thing as I meant it to be.

"It's yours," I chortled in my joy. "You can have it on a silver
salver!"

"If only we can get a girl," BROTHER was worrying. "We ought to get
one, easy. She needn't be so much of a looker."

"And we'll cut the comedy and the dance," I said, thankfully.

"There must be a hundred girls crazy for the job, with all the idle
acts there are now. All she's got to do is walk through,--it's
actress proof, that part. If we could just get a girl, not too young,
kind of pathetic looking----"

Then, suddenly and serenely, I knew what I was going to do. And I
knew that, sink or swim, never again was I going to "put it under." I
told them to wait. I taxied opulently home. My waif was curled up in
my kimono, feeding my fan-tailed goldfish. "Hurry up," I said,
briskly. "You're holding the rehearsal!"

While she was scrambling, bewilderedly, into her clothes, I explained
to her and dug out the old 'scripts and carbons, and on the way back
I told her the story