It was hot and stuffy, and the air reeked with grease paint. There was a
perpetual chatter with occasional outbursts of laughter, followed by
peremptory commands of "Less noise down there!" In the midst of the
hub-bub a call-boy gave the signal for the opening number of the chorus;
the chatter and giggling ceased, and the bright costumes settled into a
definite line as the girls filed up the stairs.
Nance, left alone, sat on a trunk and waited for her turn in a fever of
impatience. She caught the opening strains of the orchestra as it swung
into the favorite melody of the day; she could hear the thud of dancing
feet overhead. She was like a stoker shut up in the hold of the vessel
while a lively skirmish is in progress on deck.
As she sat there the wardrobe woman, a matronly-looking, Irish
person, came up and ordered her peremptorily to get off the trunk.
Nance not only complied, but she offered her assistance in getting it
out of the passage.
"May ye have some one as civil as ye are to wait on ye when ye are as old
as I am!" said the woman. "It's your first night, eh?"
"Yep. Maybe my last for all I know. They 're trying me out."
"Good luck to ye," said the woman. "Well I mind the night I made me
first bow."
"You!"
"No less. I'd a waist on me ye could span wid yer two hands. And legs!
well, it ain't fer me to be braggin', but there ain't a girl in the
chorus kin stack up alongside what I oncet was! Me an' a lad named Tim
Moriarty did a turn called 'The Wearing of the Green,'--'Ryan and
Moriarty' was the team.
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