And it was Maizie who was responsible for insisting that Joan wheedle an advance of ten dollars from Quard, ostensibly toward the purchase of costume and make-up. But when this had been successfully negotiated, the dancers advised Joan to save it against an emergency, and between them provided her with an outfit composed of cast-offs: a black satin décolleté bodice, an accordion-pleated short skirt of the period of 1890, wear-proof silk stockings, a pair of broken-down satin slippers with red heels, a japanned tin make-up box with a broken lock, and a generous supply of cheap grease-paint and cold cream. Joan's début occurred within the time-limit set by Quard and before an audience of two, not counting a few grinning stage-hands. The two were the agent Schneider, and the manager of a small moving-picture house in the Twenty-third Street shopping district; on the half-lighted stage of which their "try-out" took place at half-past ten of a rainy and disheartening morning. The judges sat in the darkened auditorium, staring apathetically and chewing large cigars. Joan, though a little self-conscious, was not at all nervous, and remembered her lines perfectly; better than this, she looked very fetching indeed in her makeshift costume. Quard forgot several of his speeches, floundered all over the stage, and in a frantic effort to redeem himself clowned his part outrageously. Nevertheless they were engaged. Convinced of their failure, Joan had only succeeded in removing her make-up and struggling into her shabby street clothing, when Quard knocked at the door of her dressing-room. He had played without make-up, and consequently had been able to catch the manager and agent before they could escape. Lounging in the doorway, he breathed a spirit of congratulation strongly tainted with fumes of whiskey. "We're on!" he declared exultantly. "What'd I _tell_ you? You needn't have changed, because we're going to stick here, and open today. One of the turns on this week's bill fell down at the last minute, and so we cop this chance to fill in. We go on after the first films--about a quarter of one; and then at four-thirty, seven-thirty, ten-forty-five. Now whadda yunno about that?" Joan gulped and shook her head, her eyes a little misty. For the first time she began to perceive that she had counted desperately on success. "I think--we're awful' lucky!" she said faintly. "Lucky nothing! I knew I could get away with it--always providing I had you to play up to." "Me!" "That's right. After we'd fixed things up I took Schneider down to the corner and bought him a drink. He said--I dunno as I ought to tell you this, but anyway--he said the sketch was punk (God knows it is) and never would've gone if it hadn't been for you. He said all the women would go crazy about you--you'd got the prettiest shape he'd seen in a month of Sundays. Yunno they get most of their afternoon houses from the women shoppers down here."