d spoken a few lines loudly and clearly, and had gone off again,
without leaving the audience impressed with the idea that they had
witnessed the last agonized and dying breath of a girl killed by fright.
I had that much advantage, but we both drew the same amount of salary
per week,--five very torn and very dirty one-dollar bills. Of course
there could have been no rule nor reason for it, but it had so happened
that all the young women of the ballet--there were four--received their
salary in one-dollar bills. However, I was saying that we, the ballet,
dressed together at that time, and poor Semantha first attracted my
attention by her almost too great willingness to use my toilet soap,
instead of the common brown washing soap she had brought with her. At
some past time this soap must have been of the shape and size of a
building brick, but now it resembled a small dumb-bell, so worn was its
middle, so nobby its ends. Then, too, my pins were, to all intents and
purposes, her pins; my hair-pins her hair-pins; while worst of all, my
precious, real-for-true French rouge was _her_ rouge.

At that point I came near speaking, because poor Semantha was not
artistic in her make-up, and she painted not only her cheeks but her
eyes, her temples, her jaws, and quite a good sample of each side of
her neck. But just as I would be about to speak, I would bethink me of
those nights when, in the interest of art, I had to be hooked up behind,
and I would hold my peace.

On the artistic occasions alluded to, I hooked Semantha up the back, and
then Semantha hooked up my back. Ah, what a comfort was that girl; as a
hooker-up of waists she was perfection. No taking hold of the two sides
of the waist, planting the feet firmly, and taking a huge breath, as if
the Vendome column was about to be overthrown. No hooking of two-thirds
of the hooks and eyes, and then suddenly unhooking them, remarking that
there was a little mistake at the top hook. No putting of thumbs to the
mouth to relieve the awful numbness caused by terrible effort and
pinching. Ah, no! Semantha smiled,--she generally did that,--turned you
swiftly to the light, caught your inside belt on the fly, as it were,
fastened that, fluttered to the top, exactly matched the top hook to
the top eye, and, high presto! a little pull at the bottom, a swift
smooth down beneath the arms, and you were finished, and you knew your
back was a joy until the act was over.

That was all I had kno