“Where are we going next?” asked the elderly actor before mentioned.  He spoke in very hoarse voice, and it was evident that he had some throat affection.  In fact, it was the ailment which had forced him to give up acting in the “legitimate,” and take to the “movies.”

“We are going to Florida—­the land of the palms!” announced the manager.  “You know I spoke of tentative plans for a drama down there when we were in the backwoods.  Now I have everything arranged, and we will leave on a steamer for St. Augustine one week from to-day.”

“Hurrah for Florida!” exclaimed a young actor, with a strikingly good-looking face.  “There’s where I’ve always wanted to go.”

“So have I!” exclaimed a young girl who stood near him,—­a girl with merry, brown eyes.  “Will you take me out after oranges, Paul?” she asked, mischievously.

“Certainly, Alice,” he answered.

“Why don’t you say orange blossoms while you’re about it?” inquired another actress, with a pert manner.

Alice blushed, and her sister Ruth looked sharply at Miss Laura Dixon, who had made the rather pointed remark.

“I’m willing to make it orange blossoms!” laughed the young fellow.  “That is, if they’re in season.”

“Ah, stop all this nonsense!” exclaimed Alice.  “I want to ask Mr. Pertell a lot of questions about where we’re going, and all that.  Oh, to think we are really going to Florida!”

“Yes, we are all going,” went on Mr. Pertell.  “I think—­”

“One moment, if you please!” interrupted a middle-aged actor whose face seemed to indicate that he lived more on vinegar than on the milk of human kindness.  “We are not all going, if you please, Mr. Pertell.”

“Who is not going, Mr. Sneed, pray?” the manager wanted to know.

“I, for one.  I have gone through many hardships and dangers acting in moving pictures for you, but I draw the line at Florida.”

“Why, I think it’s perfectly lovely there!” exclaimed Miss Pearl Pennington, a chum of Miss Dixon.

“Do you call alligators lovely?” asked Mr. Pepper Sneed, who was known as “the actor with the grouch.”  He was always finding fault.  “Lovely alligators!” he sneered.  “If you want to go to Florida, and be eaten by an alligator—­go.  I’ll not!”

Some of the younger members of the company looked rather serious at this.  They had not counted on alligators.

“Now look here!” exclaimed Mr. Pertell.  “That’s all nonsense.  We are going where there are no alligators; but I’ll pay anyone who is injured in the slightest by one of the saurians a thousand dollars!”

“Then I’ll go!” cried Mr. Sneed, who was rather “close,” and fond of money.  “But I’m not going to stand a very big bite for that sum!” he stipulated, while the others laughed.

“I’ll grade the payments according to the bites, at the rate of a thousand dollars a big bite,” declared the manager, also laughing.