taken riding on the
back-wheel, like a lady just leaving the house and doing that to amuse
herself?"

Lily, still undecided, took up the pen again: one foot on the saddle; six
pairs of tights; three dresses; the theaters at which she had
appeared....

What a pack of jossers! She couldn't forgive the agents for her present
want of success. She was exasperated. She felt inclined to go and see the
managers themselves, those who had made love to her on the stage, and to
send in her card to them--"Miss Lily"--just to teach those jossers of
agents! Her independent ways had already made enemies for her: she knew
that; but how could she help being angry? The tricks they played you, down
to making you miss a marriage, as had happened in London, the other day,
to the Three Graces, to one of them, who had been courted, during Mr.
Fuchs' absence, by the boy-violinist. Their agent had launched into
slanders and even insults to prevent the marriage, which would have split
up the troupe and broken the contract....

"What a pack of nigger-drivers!" thought Lily. "As long as they get their
ten per cent., the rest can go hang, for all they care!"

There was no doubt that Lily had got out of bed on the wrong side, at the
thought of having to climb all those staircases again and to dance
attendance with the rotten lot in the waiting-rooms. But, by Jove, she
could have boxed the ears of the first agent she visited that afternoon!
He had the impudence to offer her a magnificent engagement in the Indian
show at Earl's Court, she to stain her skin brown, dye her hair black,
with rings in her nose, at the wrists, at her ankles; a costume like Miss
Ruth's, all in gauze; the nautch-girl on the bicycle; six times a day, in
the open air, to the sound of tomtoms. Play the negress; that's what he
offered her! She could not help laughing, in spite of her anger. But she
became quite intractable and snubbed another agent who suggested a one
day's billet in a tiny music-hall at a ridiculous price.

"I don't give my performance under five pounds, or on a stage of less than
thirty feet!" cried Lily.

At last, luck seemed to turn; she settled for Spain and Portugal, and that
same evening, at the Bijou Theater, she was offered another engagement,
for three months hence. This contract would procure her others, after her
spell of ill luck. Lily at once took courage again:

"Oh, if I had the Astrarium!" she thought.

Everywhere, at the theater, at the