retired to the flock mattress
in the corner of the room and called Cake to bring the candle.

"I've an idea I'm going to leave you, gutter-snipe," he said, "and I
doubt if I ever see you again. The end of life cancels all bands. And
the one that bound you to me, alley-cat, was very material, very
material indeed. The kind that runs easily in and out of a black
bottle." He laughed.

"You Shakespearian actress!" He laughed again, longer this time. "But
I have not forgotten you," he resumed. "In addition to all that I have
taught you, I am going to leave you something. Here," he fumbled out a
square envelope and Cake took it between her hands. "Take that to the
address written on it," said the lodger, "and see what the gentleman
does." He began to laugh again.

"Noyes----" he cried and broke off to curse feebly but volubly. Cake
did not even glance in his direction. She went away out of the room,
too utterly stunned with fatigue to look at the letter in her dingy
hand.

The next morning the lodger was dead. He was buried in the potters'
field quite near his old landlady.

This second funeral, such as it was, closed the shelter that Cake, for
want of a more fitting name, had called home. She decided to put all
her years of bitterly acquired learning to the test. And as she best
knew what she had bought and paid for it she felt she could not fail.
She unfolded from a scrap of newspaper the envelope presented her by
the lodger and carefully studied the address.

Cake could both read and write, having acquired these arts from a
waiter at Maverick's, who also helped her steal the broken meats with
which she secured her artistic education. And, watching the steady
disappearance of the food, this waiter marvelled that she got no
fatter as she grew upward, hovering about in hope of becoming her
lover if she ever did. But even if that miracle had ever been
accomplished the helpful waiter would still have waited. Cake's
conception of a real lady was _Queen Katherine_; _Cleopatra_ her dream
of a dangerous, fascinating one. And what chance in the world for
either with a waiter?

Cake read the name and address upon the envelope freely as the hopeful
bread-caster had taught her: Arthur Payson Noyes, National Theatre.
With the simplicity and dispatch that characterized her, she went to
that place. To the man reposing somnolently in the broken old chair
beside the door she said she had a letter for Mr. Noyes. The
doorkeeper saw