he other. The house in which he took up
his quarters, in Rathbone Place, quite close to Jimmy, was small and dark,
but not dear. The upper story was occupied by people who were out all day
and the basement served as a lumber room. They would feel quite at home
here ... with no old sheep to listen at the keyholes.

[Illustration: TOM, THE SHOEBLACK]

And then he would have slept in the parks, if necessary, anywhere, rather
than waste more precious time! His Lily, his troupe, before everything.
What he had to do was to get a move on. He went so far as to engage a boy,
a shoeblack at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road for
the rest of the time, to attend to the bikes and the girls at practice.

Pa gave his mind to the gear, the expenses, the general business. Ma saw
to good order, to domestic discipline. It was no longer the quiet life of
a Pa and Ma trotting round the world in the company of their one and only
bread-winning star. As for Lily, the daughter of the boss and manager, she
owed a good example to one and all. In the morning, with Maud, she went
down to the kitchen, lit the stove, made the coffee. Next, she carried up
the breakfast to Pa and Ma in bed, then distributed their rations to the
famished girls. And off they went, all six of them, with Pa following at
their heels.

The stage-door gave the apprentices a thrill the first day they entered.
The passage, gently sloping, tall and wide, because of the scenery,
smelt of elephants and cheap scent. It was blocked with properties, with
queer-shaped cases, flat as a slab or round as a ball. There were long,
narrow boxes, for the horizontal bars; sometimes a row of wicker
coffins, with a ventriloquist's figures inside. And labels from
everywhere--Melbourne, Chicago, Berlin, Lisbon--and "Rlys." and "S. S."
that made you feel in the hold of a liner, off to foreign ports.

At the end, beyond an iron door, was the stage, very dark, pricked here
and there with electric lamps. There were things that glittered with
spangles. To the girls it seemed like the Kingdom of Puss-in-Boots or
Blue-Beard; but to Lily it was an old story. She was a little like the
school-girl in the good days long past, for whom the master was always
waiting, cane in hand. The rest she didn't care about.

Nevertheless, huge as the stage was, there was not always room to
practise: ponies or elephants would monopolize it for hours at a time. Or
else, when Roofer was supplying a ba