voice, answering to the name
of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had
limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to
bed.

They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The
red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on
the boardwalk.

The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the
interval of waiting for the meal.

"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a
face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
around with it long!"

A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere
sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical
worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes these girls
would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.

Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily
attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all
you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from
end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're
on the road."

"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"

The Duchess took a sip of coffee.

"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"

"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when
one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a mo