The _Thief_ forgot to load his revolver, with the result that Quard fired the only shot in their duel--and then fell dead. This so rattled _David_ that he anticipated his first entrance and rushed on the stage only to back off precipitately while Joan was urging the _Thief_ to go and leave her to shoulder his crime.
The only misadventure that failed to attend upon the performance was a traditional one of the stage: the theatre cat by some accident did _not_ walk upon the scene at a climax and seat itself before the footlights to wash its face.
Nevertheless the sketch "got over" at the matinée, receiving three curtain calls; and at night--when the little company, conscious of its crimes, pulled itself together and acted with an intensity of effort only equalled by that of its first performance in New York--the house gave the piece a rousing reception.
Thereafter they played it well and consistently, with increasing assurance as days passed and use bred the habit in them all.
On Thursday Quard heard from Boskerk, and announced that the company would return to New York the following Monday to play a six weeks' engagement in the Percy Williams houses, beginning with a fortnight in Manhattan and winding up in Greenpoint, Long Island. He added that Boskerk was busy arranging a subsequent tour which would take them to the Pacific Coast and back. He did not add that the agent had successfully demanded as much as four hundred and fifty dollars a week for the offering from many of the more prosperous houses on their list; from which figure the price ranged down to as little as three hundred in some of the smaller inland towns. But even at this minimum, Quard had so scaled his salary list, contrary to his representations to Joan, that his gross weekly profit (excluding personal living expenses) would seldom be less than one hundred dollars a week.
Back in New York, Joan established herself temporarily at a small and very poor hotel on the west side of Harlem. Since their engagement took her no farther south than Sixty-third Street and Broadway during its first week, and the second week was played at One-hundred-and-twenty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue, she felt tolerably insured against meeting either Matthias or any member of her own family.