. "What-ta you tryin' to do--shake me off'n the
bar?" she would mutter under her breath to her partner.

"That's right! Leggo o' me an' lemme bus' my bean, damn you!" snarled
Howard. And to the audience he sang, "Oh, ain't it great to have a
little girlie you can trust for--life!"

They were still muttering angrily as they came off. The handclapping
had been faint.

"Aw, for God's sake, stop your jawin'!" half screamed Florette. "It
ain't no more my fault than it is yours. If they don' like us they
don' like us, tha's all."

She ran up the stairs, sobbing. Howard followed her. They shared a
dressing room now. It was small, and Freddy was in the way, although
he tried to squeeze himself into the corner by the dingy stationary
washstand. Howard shoved Freddy. Florette protested. The quarrelling
broke out afresh. Howard tipped over a bottle of liquid white.
Florette screamed at him, and he raised his fist. Freddy darted out of
his corner.

"Say, ya big stiff, cut out that rough stuff, see?" cried little
Freddy in the only language of chivalry that he knew.

Howard whirled upon him furiously, calling him a name that Freddy did
not understand, but Florette flung herself between them and caught the
blow.

* * * * *

"He certainly looks as if he had fallen asleep," Miss Nellie Blair
repeated. "Better run out and get him, Mary. He might tumble off the
wall."

As Mary went out a maid came in.

"A gen'l'mun to see you, Miss Blair," she announced.

"Is it a parent?" asked Miss Nellie.

The maid's eyebrows twitched, and she looked faintly grieved, as all
good servants do when they are forced to consider someone whom they
cannot acknowledge as their superior.

"No, ma'am, he doesn't look like a parent," she complained.

"He really is a very queer-lookin' sort of person, ma'am. I wouldn't
know exactly where to place him. Shall I say you are out, ma'am?"

"Yes," said Miss Eva. "No doubt he wants to sell an encyclopedia."

"No, let him come in," said Miss Nellie. "It might be a reporter about
Madame d'Avala," she added, turning to her sister. "Sometimes they
look queer."

"If it turns out to be an encyclopedia I shall leave you at once,"
said Miss Eva. "You are so kind-hearted that you will look through
twenty-four volumes, and miss your dinner----"

But the gentleman who came in carried no books, nor did he look like
one who had ever been associated with them. Carefully dressed in