_A room in the down-stairs of a summer cottage. High around the wall runs an art frieze of a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and so on. In one place on the frieze there is an overlapping--here we have half a fisherman with half a pile of nets at his foot, crowded damply against half a ship on half a crimson ocean. The frieze is not in the plot, but frankly it fascinates me. I could continue indefinitely, but I am distracted by one of the two objects in the room--a blue porcelain bath-tub. It has character, this bath-tub. It is not one of the new racing bodies, but is small with a high tonneau and looks as if it were going to jump; discouraged, however, by the shortness of its legs, it has submitted to its environment and to its coat of sky-blue paint. But it grumpily refuses to allow any patron completely to stretch his legs--which brings us neatly to the second object in the room:_ _It is a girl--clearly an appendage to the bath-tub, only her head and throat--beautiful girls have throats instead of necks--and a suggestion of shoulder appearing above the side. For the first ten minutes of the play the audience is engrossed in wondering if she really is playing the game fairly and hasn’t any clothes on or whether it is being cheated and she is dressed._ _The girl’s name is_ JULIE MARVIS. _From the proud way she sits up in the bath-tub we deduce that she is not very tall and that she carries herself well. When she smiles, her upper lip rolls a little and reminds you of an Easter Bunny. She is within whispering distance of twenty years old._ _One thing more--above and to the right of the bath-tub is a window. It is narrow and has a wide sill; it lets in much sunshine, but effectually prevents any one who looks in from seeing the bath-tub. You begin to suspect the plot?_ _We open, conventionally enough, with a song, but, as the startled gasp of the audience quite drowns out the first half, we will give only the last of it:_ JULIE: (_In an airy sophrano--enthusiastico_) When Caesar did the Chicago He was a graceful child, Those sacred chickens Just raised the dickens The Vestal Virgins went wild. Whenever the Nervii got nervy He gave them an awful razz They shook in their shoes With the Consular blues The Imperial Roman Jazz (_During the wild applause that follows_ JULIE _modestly moves her arms and makes waves on the surface of the water--at least we suppose she does. Then the door on the left opens and_ LOIS MARVIS _enters, dressed but carrying garments and towels._ LOIS _is a year older than_ JULIE _and is nearly her double in face and voice, but in her clothes and expression are the marks of the conservative. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Mistaken identity is the old rusty pivot upon which the plot turns._)