and you'd turn them into a white elephant!"

In other words, Trampy, according to her, was a Jonah, good only for
playing the people in, if that!

"A wife has no right to speak to her husband as you do!" exclaimed Trampy,
leaping up under the insult. "You deserve a good thrashing!"

"None of that!" said Lily angrily, ready to fly at his throat.

"A wife," resumed Trampy, with great dignity, "helps her husband, instead
of insulting him."

"We're in for it, I suppose!" said Lily.

"Certainly, we're in for it! I have no engagement now, but that's no
reason why you shouldn't find one. Look for one and work!"

Lily was in for it, knee-deep, as she said. She was not excessively
astonished: it was the inevitable end! Not that she disliked to work: her
idleness, on the contrary, was beginning to pall upon her; but it was the
humiliation of going back to it after putting on so much side and posing
as the lady. She had worked for Pa; now she would work for Trampy; it was
natural and proper. There were exceptions--the wife at home, as Jimmy
said, that josser!--but they were rare.

"Take up your bike again," said Trampy, after a pause. "Be a good little
wife, help me out of this. I have something in my mind, a scheme which
will make us rich; you'll see later on."

"But," said Lily, "I haven't a stage bike, and yours is really too ugly."

"I know of one for sale."

"Very well, I'll work," said Lily. "I'll make them give me this tour which
they promised you and didn't sign for; and to-morrow you shall see!"

At heart, Lily was not sorry to show her husband how people got out of a
scrape, when they had talent; and, the next day, she went to an agent,
accompanied by Trampy, looking very dignified. Her cheeky feather was made
to dance attendance for a moment; and then she was shown into the office.
Lily Clifton? The New Zealander on Wheels? Straight away a contract,
signed in duplicate! A week in each town; later on, perhaps, a month in
Berlin, at the Kolossal. Lily displayed wonderful tact, did not triumph
too openly over Trampy. She acted to perfection the part of the little
lady who takes up the bike again just for fun--as in the time of her
"French governess"--or rather of a dear little thing wholly wrapped up now
in her wifely duty: her poor husband ill, she herself needing exercise,
just for fun, you know.

On leaving the agent's, she bought some material, then ran home, cut out
stage dresses. In the evening, Lily w