always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their
eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the
telephone-girl, and Mr. Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the door
marked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,
debonair thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a
jaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rank
and file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a
fleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk and
a section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or a
younger man with fair hair and a double chin.

The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,
almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands
round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the
uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.
Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.
Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were
nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre
as the colour that brings the best results. The men were all so much
alike that they seemed to be members of one large family--an illusion
which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studded with
"dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. A stern
fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of lively and
powerful young scents.

For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but she
recovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence of
New York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,
and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr. Brown, of Brown and
Widgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walk
straight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. She pushed
her way through the crowd until she came to the small ante-room.

In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In one
corner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on a
typewriter; a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having an
argument with Central which was already warm and threatened to descend
shortly to personalities; on a chair tilted back so that it rested
against the wall, a small boy sat eating sweets and reading the comic
page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, like zoological
specimens,