ita had done a splendid job with the
play the year before, and I spoke to her, after this year's show was
over, about coming to Hamilton. She was not at all interested, but
polite and sweet about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the
next day, and showed her these photographs of our own play in the hope
that they would make her take the idea more seriously. We had borrowed a
Little Theater director from Chicago and I knew we had done a really
good job of 'The Beggar's Opera.' The local reviews--"

"These 'stills' look extremely professional. I don't wonder that they
interested Nita," Dundee cut in. "Will you tell me what she said?"

"She rather startled me," Lois Dunlap confessed. "I first showed her
this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a
bit--she didn't know 'The Beggar's Opera'--she almost snatched the
photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes
grew perfectly enormous. I've never seen her so excited since--"

"What did she say?" Dundee interrupted tensely.

"Why, she said nothing just at first, then she began to laugh in the
queerest way--almost hysterically. I asked her why she was laughing--I
was a little huffy, I'm afraid--and she said the men looked so adorably
conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players. I
told her that 'Macheath'--he's the highwayman hero, you know--was played
by Clive Hammond; that my Peter was 'Robin of Bagshot', that Johnny
Drake was another highwayman, 'Mat of the Mint', that Tracey Miles
played the jailor, 'Lockit'--"

"Did she show more interest in one name than another?"

"Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as 'Peachum', the fence, she
cried out suddenly: 'Why, I know him! I met him once on a party.... Is
he really a _judge_?' and she laughed as if she knew something very
funny about Hugo--as no doubt she did. He was an inveterate
'lady-killer' before his marriage, as you may have heard."

"Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall among
the players?" Dundee asked.

"No," Lois answered, after considering a moment. "I'm sure she didn't
notice him until I pointed him out. The face in this group that seemed
to interest her most was Flora Miles'. Flora played the part of 'Lucy
Lockit', the jailor's daughter, and Karen Marshall the other feminine
lead, 'Polly Peachum', you know. But it was Flora's picture she lingered
over, so I showed her this picture," and Lois Dunlap rea