And she does it. And there’s no fake blank cartridges or assistants pulling strings. Helen fires. The bullet—the actual bullet—goes through the face of the photograph—and then strikes the hidden spring of the sliding panel in the wall—and lo! the panel slides, and there is the missing $ 647,000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold. It’s great. You know how it is. Cherry practised for two months at a target on the roof of her boarding-house. It took good shooting. In the sketch she had to hit a brass disk only three inches in diameter, covered by wall-paper in the panel; and she had to stand in exactly the same spot every night, and the photo had to be in exactly the same spot, and she had to shoot steady and true every time.

Of course old “Arapahoe” had tucked the funds away there in the secret place; and, of course, Jack hadn’t taken anything except his salary (which really might have come under the head of “obtaining money under”; but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York girl was really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and, necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson—and there you are.

After Hart and Cherry had gotten “Mice Will Play” flawless, they had a try-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates. The sketch was a house wrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates a theatre from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats, being dressed for it, swam in tears.

After the show the booking agents signed blank cheques and pressed fountain pens upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was what it panned out.

That night at 11.30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good night at her boarding-house door.

“Mr. Hart,” said she thoughtfully, “come inside just a few minutes. We’ve got our chance now to make good and to make money. What we want to do is to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can.”

“Right,” said Bob. “It’s business with me. You’ve got your scheme for banking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow with the Jap cook and nobody around to raise trouble. Anything to enlarge the net receipts will engage my attention.”

“Come inside just a few minutes,” repeated Cherry, deeply thoughtful. “I’ve got a proposition to make to you that will reduce our expenses a lot and help you work out your own future and help me work out mine—and all on business principles.”

“Mice Will Play” had a tremendously successful run in New York for ten weeks—rather neat for a vaudeville sketch—and then it started on the circuits. Without following it, it may be said that it was a solid drawing card for two years without a sign of abated popularity.

Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor’s New York houses, said of Hart & Cherry:

“As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit. It’s pleasure to read their names on the booking list. Quiet, hard workers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute, straight home after their act, and each of’ em as gentlemanlike as a lady. I don’t expect to handle any attractions that give me less trouble or more respect for the profession.”

And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of the story:

At the end of its second season “Mice Will Play” came back to New York for another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres. There was never any trouble in booking it at the top-notch price. Bob Hart had his bungalow nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many savings-deposit bank books that she had begun to buy sectional bookcases on the instalment plan to hold them.