"
"She's a awful cute little dancer," Birdie recommended. "She knows all
the steps in the Red-Bird chorus. I taught her when I was here before.
If you'd say a word to Mr. Pulatki he might try her out at rehearsal
this morning."
Nance held her breath while Reeser's quizzical eyes continued to
study her.
"All right!" he said suddenly. "She's pretty young, but we'll see what
she can do. Now clear the way. Lower that drop a little, boys. Hurry up
with the second set."
The girls scurried away to the wings where they found a narrow space in
which Nance was put through the half-forgotten steps.
"It's all in the team work," Birdie explained. "You do exactly what I do,
and don't let old Spagetti rattle you. He goes crazy at every rehearsal.
Keep time and grin. That's all there is to it"
"I can do it!" cried Nance radiantly. "It's easy as breathing!"
But it proved more difficult than she thought, when in a pair of property
bloomers she found herself one of a party of girls advancing, retreating,
and wheeling at the arbitrary command of an excitable little man in his
shirt-sleeves, who hammered out the time on a rattling piano.
Pulatki was a nervous Italian with long black hair and a drooping black
mustache, both of which suffered harsh treatment in moments of dramatic
frenzy. His business in life was to make forty lively, mischievous girls
move and sing as one. The sin of sins to him, in a chorus girl, was
individuality.
"You! new girl!" he screamed the moment he spied Nance, "you are out
of ze line.
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