Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/217

Rh troubled a little. "I wanted the prize Mrs. Kerrick offered, and I did my best."

"And your best is very good—remarkably good," declared the producer. "I have come to see you and your mother about it. I want you to let me have the right to produce the play. Monday I will come with a contract; meanwhile I want Mrs. Morse to accept this check—which Mr. Monterey will endorse for me—to bind the agreement. I take a sort of option on the play, as it were," he said, and he handed the check to Jess.

"You do not mean it?" gasped the girl.

"I certainly do," said the other, rising. "Your play is not like the work of a professional playwright; but a professional writer of plays can take your work and whip it into shape And I am willing to show my confidence in its final success by risking that sum upon it to start with."

Jess looked then at the check. It was another two hundred dollars. Jess shut her eyes tight for a moment; then she opened them again to be sure she was not dreaming.

When she opened them she really believed she saw Poverty fly out of the window!