Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/154

144 listened devotedly to any girl who talked to him.

Lily began to cultivate Mr. Pizotti assiduously. Really, one might have supposed she had written the play, instead of Jess Morse, she was so frequently in conference with Mr. Pizotti that first afternoon.

Bobby, who had likewise been cast for a part in "The Spring Road," watched Lily's actions with the stage manager with a good deal of disgust.

"What do you know about that foolish girl?" she demanded. "I'll wager that greasy foreigner has got a wife and ten children—and neglects them. He has brilliantine on that moustache, and he smells of hair-oil, and I'll wager, too his hair will show gray at the roots, and I know it is thin on top."

"How wise you are, Miss Bobby," said Nellie, who heard her. "For a child you seem to have learned a lot."

"I'm foxy," returned Bobby, grinning impishly. "I'm fully as smart as that kid brother of Alice Long's. He came up to see us the other day—Alice brought him. Aunt Mary is real old fashioned, you know, and she sat in the kitchen darning and Tommy was playing around the floor. She thought it was getting toward tea time and she said to him: