Part 36

"It brings back my youth," she pursued. "The best times of my life have been mixed up with powder and rouge--Washington's Birthday nights, and minstrel shows, and masquerades, and plays at boarding-school, and even Mother Goose tableaux when I was a--"

Patty's reminiscences were interrupted by Georgie, who was anxiously pacing up and down the wings. "It's queer some of the cast don't come. I told them to be here early, so we could get them all made up and not have a rush at the end."

"Oh, there's time enough," said Patty, comfortably. "It isn't seven yet, and if they're going to dress in their rooms it won't take any time over here just to make them up and put on their wigs. It's a comparatively small cast, you see. Now, on the night of the Trig. ceremonies, when we had to make up three whole ballets and only had one box of make-up, we were rushed. I thought I'd never live to see the curtain go down. Do you remember the suit of chain-mail we made for Bonnie Connaught out of wire dish-cloths? It took sixty-three, and the ten-cent store was terribly dubious about renting them to us; and then, after working every spare second for three days over the thing, we found, the last minute, that we hadn't left a big enough hole for her to get into, and--"

"Oh, do keep still, Patty," said Georgie, nervously; "I can't remember what I have to do when you talk all the time."

A manager on the eve of producing a new play, with his reputation at stake, may be excused for being a trifle irritable. Patty merely shrugged her shoulders and descended through the stage-door to the half-lighted hall, where she found Cathy Fair strolling up and down the center aisle in an apparently aimless manner.

"Hello, Cathy," said Patty; "what are you doing over here?"

"I'm head usher, and I wanted to see if those foolish sophomores had mixed up the numbers again."

"It strikes me they're a trifle close together," said Patty, sitting down and squeezing in her knees.

"Yes, I know; but you can't get eight hundred people into this hall any other way. When we once get them packed they'll have to sit still, that's all. What are you doing over here yourself?" she continued. "I didn't know you were on the committee. Or are you just helping Georgie?"

"I'm in the cast," said Patty.

"Oh, are you? I saw the program to-day, but I'd forgotten it. I've often wondered why you haven't been in any of the class plays."

"Fortune and the faculty are against it," sighed Patty. "You see, they didn't discover my histrionic ability before examinations freshman year, and after examinations, when I was asked to be in the play, the faculty thought I could spend the time to better advantage studying Greek. At the time of the sophomore play I was on something else and couldn't serve, and this year I had just been deprived of my privileges for coming back late after Christmas."

"But I thought you said you were in it?"

"Oh," said Patty, "it's a minor part, and my name doesn't appear."

"What sort of a part is it?"

"I'm a crash."

"A crash?"

"Yes, 'a crash without.' Lord Bromley says, 'Cynthia, I will brave all for your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.' At this point a crash is heard without. I," said Patty, proudly, "am the crash. I sit behind a moonlit balcony in a space about two feet square, and drop a lamp-chimney into a box. It may not sound like a very important part, but it is the pivot upon which the whole plot turns."

"I hope you won't be taken with stage-fright," laughed Cathy.

"I'll try not," said Patty. "There comes the butler and Lord Bromley and Cynthia. I've got to go and make them up."

"Why are you making people up, if you are not on the committee?"

"Oh, once, during a period of mental weakness, I took china-painting lessons, and I'm supposed to know how. Good-by."

"Good-by. If you get any flowers I'll send them in by an usher."

"Do," said Patty. "I'm sure to get a lot."

Behind the scenes all was joyful confusion. Georgie, in a short skirt, with her shirt-waist sleeves rolled up and a note-book in her hand, was standing in the middle of the stage directing the scene-shifters and distracted committee. Patty, in the "green-room," was presiding over the cast, with a hare's foot in one hand and the other daubed with red and blue grease-paints.

"Oh, Patty," remonstrated Cynthia, with a horrified glance in the mirror, "I look more like a soubrette than a heroine."

"That's the way you ought to look," returned Patty. "Here, hold still till I put another dab on your chin."

Cynthia appealed to the faithful Lord Bromley, who was sitting in the background, politely letting the ladies go first. "Look, Bonnie, don't you think I'm too red? I know it'll all come off when you kiss me."