o, and I found them a surprisingly decent lot, considering
that it is the cheapest sort of a vaudeville troupe. That poor little
woman with the red eyes and the parti-colored hair is the mother of the
infant. I saw one of the children carrying it about the hall as I left
my room. She wears spangled tights--she told me with a lively regret at
the prospect of pawning them--and shoots balls from the head of that
young man that looks like a parson. And the soubrette--all my ideals are
shattered! Look at her."

The soubrette had a lank young body neatly attired in a store suit and
shirt-waist. Her face was sallow and her black hair as lank as her body,
but her eyes were keen and bright, and she was indisputably respectable.
She was drinking her coffee with both elbows on the table and listening
with a sort of indifferent sympathy to an elderly untidy woman who was
sniffling.

"Drop it," she shot out, finally. "'Tain't worth it. The landlord's
given us a free breakfast, anyhow, and it's more'n most of 'em does.
We'll get back to 'Frisco somehow, and will run into Jake first thing.
I'll give him a slice of my mind right in the thickest of the
Tenderloin. You just shut up and be thankful you ain't got no kids."

"She is positively discouraging," said Gwynne, as he attacked his
excellent breakfast. "I thought that the frozen surface of the American
woman thawed on the stratum soubrette."

"The class is not always remarkable for its asceticism," said Isabel,
dryly. "I often lunch here, and see many varieties. The leading lady is
generally a large voluptuous person with a head like a hay-stack seen
through the wrong end of an opera-glass, and some of the soubrettes are
all hats and eyes and wriggling grace. The men are what we call 'tough,'
which is not exactly what you mean by 'toff.' Occasionally, however,
there are the most respectable family parties, including the children
whom they won't be parted from. We have three places of amusement,
including quite a fine opera-house, so they do very well, as a rule. Was
it your sympathy that kept you awake?"

"I am not an ass. But they were in and out of one another's rooms all
night, and of course the baby cried. Then my room was over the
bar--well, what will you? Such is life. I am sorry you cannot eat
another breakfast. This seems to be the land of good cooking. If I did
not scorn to be unoriginal I should dilate upon the pie and doughnuts I
had for breakfast on the other side o