“Any experience?” he said laconically. “I mean of business.” “No, sir, none,” Joan answered. “Ah! I see: a lady, I suppose.” “I am not a lady, sir,” replied Joan. “Ain’t you?—then you imitate the article very well.” “Just what I feared,” murmured Mrs. Bird, shaking her head. “However,” he went on, “we can overlook that fault; but I have another doubt about you. You’re too good-looking. Our customers like to see their things tried on a fine figure, of course, but they don’t like to see them tried on a girl who makes them look common dowds beside her. Why, a three-guinea mantle would seem a better thing on your back than a forty-pound cloak on most of them. You’d show off the goods, I dare say, but I doubt that you would frighten away custom.” “I thought that tall people were always wanted,” hesitated Joan. “Tall people!” said Mr. Waters, with an admiring snigger; “just you look at yourself in this pier glass, and I think that you will see something else there beside height. Now, I’ll give you a bit of advice: you drop this show and go on to the stage. You’ll draw there; yes, even if you can’t sing or act a bit, there are hundreds who would pay to come and look at you. By George! I’m not sure that I wouldn’t myself.” “I do not wish to go on the stage,” answered Joan stiffly; and Mrs. Bird behind her murmured, “No! never!” in sympathetic tones. “If you think that I shall not suit,” she added, “I will not take up your time any longer.” “I didn’t say that, miss. Here!”—and he put his head out of the door and called to a shop-woman—“just give me that velvet mantle, will you? Now, miss,” he said: “you fancy that Mrs. Bird’s a customer, and let me see you try to sell her this cloak.” Joan’s first impulse was to refuse, but presently a sense of the fun of the situation prevailed, and she rose to it, mincing, smiling, and praising up the garment, which she hung upon her own shoulders, bending her graceful shape this way and that to show it in various lights and attitudes, till at length Mrs. Bird exclaimed, “Well, I never!—you’re a born actress, my dear. You might have been bred to the business. I should have bought that cloak long ago, I should, though, saving your presence, Mr. Waters, I don’t think it is worth the price asked.” “You’ll do,” said the manager, rubbing his hands, “if only you can forget that you are a lady, and have _nous_ enough to flatter when you see that it is welcome, and that’s always where ladies and their clothes are concerned. What’s your name?” “Haste: Joan Haste.” “Very well, Miss Haste. Let’s see: to-day is Saturday, so you may as well begin on Monday. Hours nine to seven, dinner and tea provided, also black silk dress, that you put on when you come and take off when you leave. I should think that the last young lady’s would fit you pretty well with a little alteration, unless you like to buy one yourself at cost price.” “Thank you, I think that I will buy one for myself.”