a showing that she was an Actress.

After that, she merely needed a Play and a Company and a lot of Scenery
and a Manager and a Theater and the soft old Public buying of the
Scalpers, in order to realize her modest Ambition to become a Real Star.

She took her Diploma and the Local Press Notices up to New York to see
what she could get on them, and found 10,000 other incipient Modjedskas
hitting the worn Trail that led from one Agency to another.

Artistic Temperaments were more Abundant than Lamp Posts, and getting
an Audience with a Big Gun was just as easy as Opening a Time-Lock with
a Hat Pin.

She had an offer at the Hippodrome to walk in front of an Elephant,
waving a prop Palm, but she spurned it, because she was ready to do
Desdemona at a Moment's Notice.

As for the Laudatory Article written by a would-be Willie Winter of the
wild and wooly West, she couldn't find any one in the neighborhood of
42nd Street who had even heard of the Tank Town in which her Folks were
so Prominent.

In order to get Experience, she signed up with a No. 4 Company, playing
the Part of the deaf-and-dumb lady who crosses the Stage and removes
the Tea Things early in the Second Act.

When the Troupe went on the Rocks at Mauch Chunk, Penna., the erstwhile
Favorite of the Pocahontas Club found herself seated on a Trunk marked
"Theater" standing off a Deputy Sheriff and waiting for an Answer to
her Wire.

The First Old Woman, who remembered Edwin Booth, came and sat beside her.

"Do not be discouraged, Honey," said She. "Go right back and start all
over, and possibly sometime Next Year you will again have the blessed
Privilege of going up a neglected Alley twice a Day and changing your
Clothes in a Barn. Any Girl with your Looks and Family Connections can
curl up in a Four-Poster at night and then saunter to the Bath over a
soft Rag in the Morning, but only a throbbing Genius can make these
Night Jumps in a Day Coach and stop at a Hotel which is operated as an
Auxiliary to a first-class Saloon. It will be Hard Sledding for the
first 15 or 20 Years, but, by the time you are 45, you may reasonably
count on getting 20 Weeks out of every 52, running around in front of
a Kinetoscope."

Lila pulled into the Scene of her Early Triumphs with a mere suggestion
of No. 2 Grease Paint still lingering behind the Ears.

As the Train rolled through the Yards, the Foreman of the Section Gang
narrowly escaped being hit in the Head with a ti