urned by Marseilles and Lyons. Friends of hers had done
well like that. But to accept a lower salary once meant accepting it
always, in establishments of the same class; it meant reducing her price,
for always, by two pounds a week, at least.

"A thousand francs: will you have it?"

And Lily:

"No, it's impossible! I can't take less than twelve pounds a week." And
she began to sum up her proofs: "Look here, at the Hippodrome, Glasgow ...
at the Palace, Leeds...."

But the agent wouldn't listen, shut up the register, was sorry:

"Can't do it ... bad season ... cyclists to be had for the asking.
Good-by."

"Good-by."

And Lily went out, went down the stairs, feeling half-inclined to go back
and accept; but no! Lower her prices? Never! Oh, those cheap artistes,
those black-legs deserved to be hanged! Great lazybones who learn a few
baby tricks on the bike or the tight-rope, back-shop acrobats, slop-shop
Lilies, who practise at a safe distance, by watching you on the stage,
through an opera-glass. They cut your prices by half; they would work for
a handful of rice, like a monkey. They deserved to have the iron curtain
come down on them, and flatten them out like black-beetles, the
wind-bags!

"I say, Glass-Eye, perhaps it's they who fell into the orchestra, was it,
when I got my thighs full of lamp-glass from the footlights, eh? They copy
you, think themselves artistes.... What! Yes? You say they are, Glass-Eye?
Damn it, I'll have your eye out!"

And Lily had a fit of laughing when she saw Glass-Eye, who hadn't said a
word, raise her elbow in affright to ward off the blow.

Lily held the banister with one hand, leaned on Maud's shoulder with the
other and laughed and laughed, only to see her maid's terrified face, a
regular fat freak shrinking before the belt. My! She would have fallen
with laughing, if Glass-Eye had not held her up; she plugged her lips with
her scented handkerchief, slapped her thighs. She had never laughed so
much in her life. She already felt consoled for all her bothers:

"Watch me, Glass-Eye! This is the way to go down-stairs!"

And, nimbly as a bird, Lily hopped on the banister, with her back to the
wall, and--w-w-w-w-whew!--slid down to the bottom, keeping her balance
faultlessly, sprang to her feet on the last stair and, with a wave of the
hand, as after a successful trick:

"There! What do you think of that?"

Lily was not given to long spells of sadness. Reaction always followed