roaching homeliness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On tour in
America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.

To-day, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face,
but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that
had charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a
great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind
paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked "Private"
in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a "shop"
now for many weeks--ever since, in fact, "Follow the Girl" had
finished its long run at the Regal Theatre.

"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.

"Who cares?" said Bill.

For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
and apt to repeat himself.

"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her manoeuvres with
the hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you--you have a
swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed--but how do
you suppose I enjoy tramping around looking for work and never finding
any?"

She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"

"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.

Nelly thrust a finger into the cage, and scratched his head.

"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."

"Good-bye, boy!"

"All right, I'm going. Be good!"

"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
any promises.

For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
spr