"Not necessary. Your part will be given you when the first rehearsal is called. I merely want to refresh my memory, to see how much you'll have to do." He ran hastily through the pages. "As I thought: you are on at the opening for about ten minutes, and near the end of the act for a two-minute scene. Twelve minutes' work a day for, say, twenty-five dollars a week: that isn't bad. You'll be out of the theatre by half-past nine every night.... You see the point I've been trying to make?" "Yes," Joan assented. "It seems very easy. I hope I can do it." "I'm sure you can," said Matthias. "But--how are you going to live between now and the opening?" Joan's eyes were blank. "Have you any money?" he insisted. "A very little," she faltered--"eighteen dollars--" "You won't get pay for rehearsals; and they'll last three weeks; after we open it will be another week before the ghost walks. That's--say--six weeks you've got to scrape through somehow. Eighteen dollars won't cover that. Perhaps you'd better go back to your old job until we start." "I was fired from the last, and it would take more than two weeks for me to find anything like it, I know." "And there you are!" Matthias tossed the manuscript back to the table, waved his hands eloquently and threw himself into a chair, regarding her with his whimsical, semi-apologetic smile. "I'm afraid," he added after a minute, "I've reached the end of my string. Further suggestions will have to come from you." "I don't know," said the girl doubtfully. "Maybe I can think of something--maybe something will turn up." "I hope so. Perhaps even I may invent something. If I do, I'll let you know, Miss Thursday." He arose, his manner an invitation to go, to which she couldn't be blind. She got up, moved slowly toward the door. "I hope I haven't bothered you much--put you out of your writing--" "Oh, that's all right," he interrupted insincerely. "And you have been awful' good to me." "Please don't think of it that way." He was holding the door for her, but on the threshold she hesitated. "Unless," she ventured half-heartedly--"unless I could help you some way with your work." "Help me?" he exclaimed, at once amazed and amused. "I mean, copying--if you ever have any." "Type-writing?" She nodded, with a flush of hope. "When I was a kid--I mean, before I left school--I studied a while at a business college--nights, you know. They taught me type-writing by the touch system, but I couldn't seem to get the hang of shorthand, and so had to give it up and go to work in a store." "Now that _is_ a helpful thought!" he cried, turning back into the room. "Wait a minute. There may be something in this. Let me think." But his deliberation was very brief. "It can be done!" he announced in another moment. "I have got a lot of stuff to be copied. You see, about a month ago I...." He checked, his eyes clouding without cause apparent to the girl.