Now the fame of Prue and her prancing was not long pent up in Carthage.
Visitors from other towns saw her work and carried her praises home.
Sometimes farmers, driving into town, would hear Mr. Maugans's music
through the open windows. Their daughters would climb the stairs and
peer in and lose their taste for the old dances, and wistfully entreat
Prue to learn them them newfangled steps.
In the towns smaller than Carthage the anxiety for the tango fermented.
A class was formed in Oscawanna, and Prue was bribed to come over twice
a week and help.
Clint Sprague, the manager of the Carthage Opera House, which was now
chiefly devoted to moving pictures, with occasional interpolations of
vaudeville, came home from Chicago with stories of the enormous moneys
obtained by certain tango teams. He proposed to book Prue in a chain of
small theaters round about, if she could get a dancing partner. She said
she had one.
Sprague wrote glowing letters to neighboring theater-managers, but,
being theater-managers, they were unable to know what their publics
wanted. They declined to take any risks, but offered Sprague their
houses at the regular rental, leaving him any profits that might result.
Clint glumly admitted that it wouldn't cost much to try it out in
Oscawanna. He would guarantee the rental and pay for the show-cards and
the dodgers; Prue would pay the fare and hotel bills of herself, her
partner, and Mr. Maugans.
Prue hesitated. It was an expense and a risk. Prue cautious! She would
take nobody for partner but Orton Hippisley. Perhaps he could borrow the
money from his father. She told him about it, and he was wild with
enthusiasm. He loved to dance with Prue. To invest money in enlarging
her fame would be divine.
He saw the judge. Then he heard him.
He came back to Prue and told her in as delicate a translation as he
could manage that it was all off. The judge had bellowed at him that not
only would he not finance his outrageous escapade with that shameless
Pepperall baggage, but if the boy dared to undertake it he would disown
him.
"Now you'll have to go," said Prue, grimly.
"But I have no money, honey," he protested, miserably.
"I'll pay your expenses and give you half what I get," she said.
He refused flatly to share in the profits. His poverty consented to
accept the railroad fare and food enough to dance on. And he would pay
that back the first job he got.
Then Prue went to Clint Sprague and offered to pay the bills if he would
give her three-fourths of the profits. He fumed; but she drove a good
bargain. Prue driving bargains! At last he consented, growling.
When Prue announced the make-up of her troupe there was a cyclone in her
own home. Papa was as loud as the judge.
"You goin' gallivantin' round the country with that Maugans idiot and
that young Hippisley scoundrel? Well, I guess not! You've disgraced us
enough in our own town, without spreading the poor but honorable name of
Pepperall all over Oscawanna and Perkinsville and Athens and Thebes."
The worn-out, typewritten-out Ollie pleaded against Prue's lawlessness.
It would be sure to cost her her place in the judge's office. It was bad
enough now.
Even Serina, who had become a mere echo of Prue, herself went so far as
to say, "Really, Prue, you know!"
Prue thought awhile and said: "I'll fix that all right. Don't you worry.
There'll be no scandal. I'll marry the boy."