Hold your shoulders stiff, so! Ah, _Dio!_ Can you not move
wiz ze rest?"
The girls started a stately number, diagonal from down-stage left toward
upper center.
"Hold ze pose!" shouted the director. Then he scrambled up on the stage
and seized Nance roughly by the arm. "You are too quick!" he shouted.
"You are too restless. We do not want that you do a solo! Can you not
keep your person still?"
And to Nance's untold chagrin she found that she could not. The moment
the music started, it seemed to get into her tripping feet, her swinging
arms, her nodding head; and every extra step and unnecessary gesture that
she made evoked a storm from the director.
Just when his irritation was at his height, Reeser joined him from
the wings.
"Here's a howdy-do!" he exclaimed. "Flossy Pierson's sprained her ankle."
"Ze leetle bear?" shrieked Pulatki; then he clutched his hair in both
hands and raved maledictions on the absent Flossy.
"See here," said Reeser, "this is no time for fireworks. Who in the devil
is to take her place?"
"Zere is none," wailed Pulatki. "She make her own part. I cannot
teach it."
"It's not the part that bothers me," said Reeser. "It's the costume.
We've got to take whoever will fit it. Who's the smallest girl in
the chorus?"
The eyes of the two men swept the double column of girls until they
rested on the one head that, despite its high coiffure, failed to achieve
the average height.
"Come here!" called Reeser to Nance.
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