are booking-offices, theatres, agents, schools,
and the lobster-palaces to which those thorny paths lead.

Wandering through the eccentric halls of the dim and fusty Thalia,
you seem to have found yourself in some great ark or caravan about to
sail, or fly, or roll away on wheels. About the house lingers a sense
of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of anxiety and
apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth. Without a guide, you wander
like a lost soul in a Sam Loyd puzzle.

Turning any corner, a dressing-sack or a _cul-de-sac_ may bring you
up short. You meet alarming tragedians stalking in bath-robes in
search of rumored bathrooms. From hundreds of rooms come the buzz
of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the ready laughter of the
convened players.

Summer has come; their companies have disbanded, and they take their
rest in their favorite caravansary, while they besiege the managers
for engagements for the coming season.

At this hour of the afternoon the day's work of tramping the rounds
of the agents' offices is over. Past you, as you ramble distractedly
through the mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled,
starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of silk,
bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of gaiety and a memory of
_frangipanni_. Serious young comedians, with versatile Adam's apples,
gather in doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from somewhere
comes the smell of ham and red cabbage, and the crash of dishes on
the American plan.

The indeterminate hum of life in the Thalia is enlivened by the
discreet popping--at reasonable and salubrious intervals--of
beer-bottle corks. Thus punctuated, life in the genial hostel scans
easily--the comma being the favorite mark, semicolons frowned upon,
and periods barred.

Miss D'Armande's room was a small one. There was room for her rocker
between the dresser and the wash-stand if it were placed
longitudinally. On the dresser were its usual accoutrements, plus the
ex-leading lady's collected souvenirs of road engagements and
photographs of her dearest and best professional friends.

At one of these photographs she looked twice or thrice as she darned,
and smiled friendlily.

"I'd like to know where Lee is just this minute," she said,
half-aloud.

If you had been privileged to view the photograph thus flattered, you
would have thought at the first glance that you saw the picture of a
many-petalled white flower, blown th