his people lived in a house, and perhaps one of these
days----

"Did you say that some of the people who are on the stage now began at
the clubs?" said Glory.

"Plenty, my dear. There's Betty Bellman for one. She was at a club in Old
Compton Street when Mr. Sefton found her out."

Aggie had to "work a turn" at each of three clubs that night, and the
girls were now at the door of the first of them. It stood at the corner
of a reputable square, and was like any ordinary house on the outside.
But people were coming and going constantly, and the doorkeeper was kept
opening and closing the door. In the middle of the hall a clerk stood at
a desk, having a great book in front of him, and making a show of
challenging everybody as he entered. He recognised Aggie as an artiste,
but passed Glory also on the payment of twopence and the signing of her
name in the book.

The dining-room of the house had been converted into a bar, with counter
and stillage, and after the girls had crushed through the crowds that
stood there they came into a large and shabby chamber, which had the
appearance of having been built over the space which had once been the
backyard. This room had neither windows nor skylights; its walls were
decorated with portraits of Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel in faded
colours, and there was a stage and proscenium at its farther end.

It was an Italian club that met there on Sunday nights, and some two or
three hundred hairdressers and restaurant-keepers of swarthy complexion
sat in groups at little round tables with their wives and sweethearts
(chiefly English women), smoking and drinking and laughing at the
performance on the stage.

Aggie went down to her dressing-room under the floor, and Glory sat at a
table with a yellow-haired lady and a dark-eyed man. A negro without the
burnt cork was twanging a banjo and cracking the jokes of the corner-man.

"That's my style--a merry touch-and-go," said the lady. And then glancing
at Glory, "Singing to-night, my dear?"

Glory shook her head.

"Thort you might be a pro' p'rhaps. Use ter be myself when I was in the
bally at the Lane. Married now, my dear; but I likes to come of a Sunday
night when the kids is got to bed."

Then Aggie danced a skirt dance, and there were shouts of applause for
her, and she came back and danced again. When she reappeared in jacket
and hat, and with her stage-box in her hand, the girls crushed their way
out. Going through the bar they w