The Bill-Toppers

“Liverpool! Come along, Glass-Eye!” said Lily, jogging her maid in the ribs.

Glass-Eye, half asleep, clumsily gathered up her parcels, while Lily looked round for the baggage-man. On the platform was an avalanche of bags, boxes, picture-frames, as at the departure from Euston; the basket trunks were being piled up in the theater-vans. Lily pointed out her hamper and her bike to the boy from the theater, who had come to meet the “program” at the station.

“Are you the bicyclist?”

“I am,” replied Lily modestly.

She gave her address: not the pros’ boarding-house, but private “digs” which had been recommended to her in London, with a note of introduction. Then she walked out of the station, followed by Glass-Eye.

Lily knew Liverpool, vaguely, as she knew all the towns of the United Kingdom and those of America, too, and Australia and India and Germany and Holland and elsewhere. They were all muddled up in her memory, she had seen so many, and made as it were one great city, but for occasional salient points, as in the towns which you came to in a boat, or those in which you had a circus parade, or others still, here and there: Glasgow, where she had fallen and broken a tooth; Blackpool with its ball-rooms, its tower and a “contract!” Sheffield, with its smoking chimneys; Washington, with a dome at the end; New York, with its sky-scrapers. The towns of her early childhood, leaning against mountains, buried under trees, were more remote, more like a dream. Elephants, monkeys, harnessed buffaloes; and then Mexico and Ave Maria, London and those footy rotters!

Liverpool was Lime Street: Lily remembered a sort of round church; when you got to that, you turned to the left. She soon found the house and received from a huge, full-blown lady the friendly welcome which Lily’s artless air and fair curls always insured her. No gentleman with them? All alone by themselves? A room with a big double bed, a little parlor with a bow-window; sixteen shillings a week, including the use of the kitchen. Just then, the baggage-man arrived, took the trunk up to the room and went on with the bike to the pros’ boarding-house and the theater. Lily, assisted by Glass-Eye, fixed herself up for the week: her dresses on the pegs, her linen safe under lock and key in the hamper. Then she made a special parcel of things for the stage: paper flowers, ostrich feathers, white laced boots.

“There, wrap that up in my petticoat,” said Lily. “And the music and the gollywog: you can bring all that to my dressing-room to-morrow morning.”

Next, Lily made herself look smart, freshened up her two bows, threw her green muslin scarf over her shoulders and went down to the parlor to pick out her favorite tune—The Bluebells of Scotland—with one finger on the piano. Meanwhile, the landlady spread the cloth: bread, marmalade, watercress, two eggs. Then, according to instructions received, Glass-Eye announced to Miss Lily that tea was ready. Lily affably invited Glass-Eye to sit down to table with her; and the two ate away like friends. Lily took the opportunity to settle her expenses; for instance—and this she insisted upon—if she, Lily, took a maid, she wouldn’t have her for nothing; she intended to pay her some small monthly wage.

“And a good many little perquisites besides, you understand, Glass-Eye; my old frocks, my hats.”

Glass-Eye did not ask that, would have given her other eye to serve Miss Lily.

Lily was still asleep, at twelve o’clock the next morning, when Glass-Eye entered the room. She had lost her way, had walked miles, had been to the landing-stage of the music-hall....

“At what time’s rehearsal?” asked Lily.

“At one o’clock, Miss Lily.”

“And you let me sleep till twelve, when I have so much to do!” said Lily. “Go and get breakfast ready ... or you’d better mind yourself!”

And Lily put out her hand to lay hold of a boot; but Glass-Eye was gone.

Lily, while dressing, reflected upon her new responsibilities, upon the way in which servants should be treated. No familiarity; not too severe, either; and no smackings ... that is to say ... however ...

“I must dress her simply,” thought Lily. “My hats, but without the feathers; coarse thread gloves; and she must always carry a parcel.”

Lily was eager to go to rehearsal, accompanied by her maid. There is no rehearsing at “rehearsal:” the “times,” the scenic effects are settled with the conductor of the band; there are no bare arms or bloomers practising on their carpets: a few dark groups, in ordinary walking dress; others, in their shirt sleeves, are opening boxes, and no mystery, no shifting lights: the stage and the house one wan hole, except the red and gold note of the curtain and the black mass of the musicians, with the gleaming brasses.

The artistes went up to the conductor, one after the other, and explained their “turns:”

“When I come on, this tune, soft, six times, to begin with; then, once, loud. When I go off ... a roll of drums.”

The band, each time, played two or three bars, mechanically, at sight; then it was understood and ... next, please.

Lily had seen this before, but not under these conditions; not dressed as at present; not accompanied by a maid. She listened as hard as she could when she walked on to the stage, caught the remarks, enjoyed the impression which she produced. They seemed to ask:

“Who is it? A singer? A dancer?”

“No, Lily; Miss Lily, you know.”

She guessed all that. Then:

“My score, Maud!”

And, leaning toward the orchestra, she explained, in her turn: pizzicati, mazurka, frog, swan, back-wheel, the waltz for the twirls, the march for the exit. And Lily withdrew with a half-curtsey and a pretty smile. Next, she put out her things in her dressing-room, on the table, before the looking-glass: brushes, pencils, grease-paints, strings of pearls for her hair. She hung a cord from the door to the window, to dry her tights on, when she washed a pair in the basin. She got out her little work-box, in case of anything tearing, threaded a needle, freshened up the knots of her ribbons, pinned photographs and p.-c.’s on the wall. And, over all, she hung her gollywog, a hairy doll, white-collared, red-waistcoated, with, in its black face, under the bristling hair, two shining tacks by way of eyes. It was the protecting idol. Not that Lily, ever faithful to the Church of England, believed much in gollywogs; but, like most music-hall people, she felt safer when she knew it was there. And her dressing-room, with the spangled skirts and the tights hanging down like flayed skins, suggested some strange, exotic chapel in which a fetish sat enthroned.

After that, Lily had nothing left to do. She went out with Glass-Eye and walked round to the front to look at her lithos. She saw to her annoyance that a serio was topping the bill—and a comic singer middling it and a cinematograph bottoming it. But no matter, she had a good place, just under the bill-topper.

Next came shopping, through the windows. She bought a pair of thread gloves for Glass-Eye at Lewis’s and then went in and lay on her bed, feeling ever so tired from getting up late that morning. She dreamed and dreamed, while Glass-Eye went marketing. As soon as Lily was alone, the thought pricked her like a pin: looking pretty, indeed! Her gentlemen friends! Jimmy, that traitor, and Trampy! Trampy would be sure to play her some dirty trick. Oh, if she could get a divorce from him, in spite of all! She had made inquiries in London. She would want a solicitor. She must have one, to set inquiries on foot.... She could have as many witnesses as she pleased: all those girls ... and the stage hands ... and two artistes, on the day when Trampy, in his fury, had flung his bike at her on the stairs; the pedal had grazed her temple, yes, at Dresden. That wasn’t the way to treat a lady. Everything that had happened was his fault; and they’d see who won the day, he or she. Her forehead wrinkled up with anger when she thought of it. She bit her lips and clenched her fists and then ... and then ... enough of that! She’d see to-morrow. And other cares came to bother her: the indispensable things which she would have to buy at the end of the week out of her salary; open-work stockings, an aigrette for the theater, a little black bog-oak pig to wear at her wrist. And Jimmy’s thousand marks ...

“Damn it, let him wait!” And, with her hand on her lucky charm, Lily fell asleep.

In the evening, at the theater, she forgot everything. She felt a longing, a fevered desire to appear. When her turn came, after the xylophones, who seemed, behind their tables laden with bottles, to be keeping a bar of musical sounds; when the light shining on the great back-drop threw up into dazzling relief the blue sea, the blue sky and the white colonnade and terraces; when, amid the flash of the lime-light and the thunder of the orchestra, she made her entrance on the stage, Lily had a smile of triumph. Life was beginning for her at last! She could have cried out for happiness to that human mass which, behind the flaming streak of the footlights, spread itself, bare-necked and bedizened, in the warm shadow of the front boxes. And she directed a scarlet smile, set off with a glint of gold, to the audience.

“I believe I was grand to-night,” said Lily, as she went off, out of breath. “Oh, if there had been an agent in the house! But no such luck: they’re never there when they’re wanted! And those two fellows,” she thought to herself. “If they had been there, they’d have died of jealousy.”

Everybody spoiled her. She needed a strong head to resist the flatteries with which she was overwhelmed, both as artiste and woman. For instance, when a row of Roofers were puffing away on the stage, some manager, who had known her when she was “that high,” was sure to observe that her talent, her firm, round hips—“Eh, Lily, you’ve got plenty of that now!” ... Lily blushed under the compliment—would make more impression than a whole herd of Roofers:

“Eh, Lily? I say, what are you doing to-night? Come and have some ...”

“Glass-Eye, my handkerchief,” Lily broke in, suspecting an invitation to supper.

Glass-Eye, in obedience to a gesture of Lily’s, opened the wrist-bag, gave Lily the lace handkerchief and Lily hid her mocking smile in a scented gesture. Then:

“Good-by. Ta-ta!”

And they shook hands, like good friends, nothing more.

Glass-Eye frightened off the admirers with her fixed stare. And Lily had no lack of them. She loved flirting. She wanted adulation, wanted to be made much of. She had a revenge to take, arrears to make up; she and sympathy had, till then, been strangers. She now took her fill of it, got carried away, saw nothing but lovers around her, three or four at a time, as when the comic quartet, the Out-of-Tunes, used to grin kisses to her in the street. It was for her that they were there, every one of them, down to the acting managers, who did not disdain to come round from the front and take a turn on the stage. It might be a question of steam-pipes or electric wires; no matter, Lily took it all to herself, made herself amiable toward their dress-coats and white shirt-fronts, and said “’K you!” with the great stage bow, the body bent in a sweeping curtsey, when they complimented her on her firm, round hips. She stabbed them with smiles, to make sure of complimentary phrases in their weekly reports to the central boards. All of them; the electrician, the conductor of the band, she had them all at her feet. It became a need for Lily to see people all around her dying for love. It gave her a feeling of mingled pride and remorse.

“Can I help it, Glass-Eye?” she would ask, to quiet her conscience. “They’re mad. They would leave their wives and children for me!”

She had an autograph album filled with “thoughts” and declarations:

“I love you! Je vous aime! Ich liebe dich!”

Lily, now that the audience was good for invitations to supper, bouquets and sweets, occupied herself with that somber mass which, formerly, did not cause her so much uneasiness as the presence of her Pa. Lily, like a real stage-girl, who had beheld waves miles high between Harwich and the Hook of Holland, saw in a few flowers a bouquet large enough to fill a cab and the least little love letter grew, in her eyes, into an offer to present her with motor-cars and to abandon wife and child. If a gentleman, for once in a way, stood on the pavement waiting for her, she dreamed of an elopement. And there were pros, too, who prowled around her, in the half light of the wings, and came up to her with outstretched hand:

“Hullo, Mrs. Trampy!”

“Call me Miss Lily,” she said, in a vexed voice. “That’s the name I’m known by.”

And many of them did know her, in fact, from having talked about her in Fourteenth Street in New York, or in State Street at Sidney, or in the theaters in South Africa, for that story of the whippings had traveled all around the world, under the folds of the Union Jack. Some proposed to take her with them in their show, or to go with her to clean her bike, instead of Glass-Eye:

“Is it a bargain?”

“Yes, I don’t think!” said Lily.

Another, just off for Melbourne, told her that, in Australia, you could find fire-escapes to marry you for half-a-crown. They joked without constraint, in the pros’ smoking-room, a small and dark corner between the house and the stage.... All of them, all the pros, she had them all at her feet; but she didn’t care for that sort and she sent them all to eat coke.

The months all passed alike. She had finished the Bill and Boom tour. She continued in the private music-halls, from north to south, from east to west of England. In spite of Glass-Eye’s impossible cooking and the everlasting ham sandwiches and pork-pies of the railway station refreshment rooms, Lily grew plumper and plumper, her nervous leanness filled out, with pigeon’s eggs and ostrich’s eggs everywhere, in front and behind. She did not kill herself with work. Once, in Glasgow, at a music-hall where, a few weeks earlier, Laurence had had a terrible fall, lying unconscious for two whole hours, the frightened manager said:

“No dangerous tricks, mind! They only get us into trouble!”

Another time, she was given only seven minutes, watch in hand, on the stage.

“Couldn’t you cut that little trick? You know the one I mean,” said the manager.

He called a little trick a performance which it had cost her eighteen months’ hard practice and no end of bruises to learn. Lily did not wait to be asked twice. She cut as desired and thought it a jolly lot easier to trot round quietly, as though out for a ride, with pretty smiles to the audience. She ended by paying more attention to her dresses than to her work:

“It’s not so much what one does,” she said, “as the way one does it.”

The sympathy with which she was surrounded unmanned the Spartan in her. She strove to please, no longer gave her performance for herself, like a machine, unerring and exact. Already in a few months, she was spoiled. She looked for adventitious successes. She said, “The audience is very cold at Birmingham,” because she was not asked out to supper, and, “They do like artistes at Sheffield, gee!” because a gentleman had sent her champagne and flowers in her dressing-room.

In the towns where she played three times a day—a matinée and two night turns—she gave half of her performance, cut whatever was dangerous or tiring. She never practised now; just went down in the morning to fetch her letters at the theater, where she loved receiving them, post-cards especially, which any one could read. She said to the jossers:

“Send me lots; talk about motor-cars and champagne suppers: that drives the pros wild.”

She left them lying on the table, or else walked about on the stage, with her letters in her hand, like a lady overwhelmed with offers, with invitations. If, by any chance, she went to the practice at the end of the week, it was to display her hat, her new boots; and she laughed to herself when she saw the artistes, each on his carpet, fagging away like mad. She felt like a fine lady visiting a boarding-school, among those little girls practising their flip-flaps or gluing themselves to the wall to try their back-bendings. The pride of a Marjutti, who, they said, tortured her spinal column to achieve a double knot; the inordinate ambition of a Laurence, risking her life for the pleasure of risking it, were things which she did not understand. And then, all those accidents! Dolly Pawnee, the other day, had broken her arm at the New York Hippodrome; the Gilson girl had fallen on her head at Budapest. They were mad, thought Lily, to do all that without being obliged to! No, no; no more of that for her! The last thing she wanted was to spoil her face, seeing that she had nothing but her smile to keep her. And Lily grew timid, looked upon herself more and more as a very precious little thing. She gave herself terrible airs on rehearsal day; thought the stage too slippery, or too small. Lily wanted a stage thirty feet wide, no less; she who, in the old days, at a gesture from Pa, would have performed her whole turn, including the head-on-the-saddle, on the top of a cab or on the Stoke Newington pavement. Formerly, she used to think everything good, did not know what fatigue meant; now, in the middle of her turn, she would say to herself, sometimes with a feeling of discouragement:

“I’ve only done half. I’ve still got this and that to do.”

And the audience itself seemed to act as her confederate. When she missed one of her tricks, Lily would lay her bike on the stage, step down to the footlights, bow with a confused air, beg pardon with a smile and receive a reassuring round of applause. Lily loved these refined audiences: her audiences, as she said; not the matinée audiences, with seats at reduced prices: to see your grocer or your butcher in the front boxes was rotten; and those people gave themselves such airs. A cheap way of doing the grand!

And the landladies spoiled her, too; those worthy souls who treated her as their own daughter.

“And a jolly sight better!” thought Lily.

Others pitied her for the profession she followed, feared she would break something, one fine day. Lily thought that very sweet of them, would have liked to stay with them for ever; but there was the constant rent at parting, a bit of herself which Lily left behind her every week. And the bothers that Maud caused her! Her stupidity drove Lily mad: tickets lost, bags mislaid, disputes with the tradesmen, battles with the bike, scratches on the shins, on the hands, everywhere. Lily lost patience, threatened her with the leather belt, damn it!

Sometimes, Lily became incensed with herself and everybody. Her divorce kept running in her head. And her three years’ book, with its last pages unsoiled by engagements, also gave her cause for uneasiness; and yet the acting managers must have sung her praises, in their weekly reports,—the ones who came and made love to her on the stage!

After different music-halls, she had done the Harrasford tour, but without any great success. People who had known her with the troupe thought that she had gone off. Lily was furious: if, on those evenings, she missed a trick, she would knock Glass-Eye about when she returned to the wings, storm at the stage—“Slippery as ice, damn it!”—fling her bike, which was not to blame, against the wall. Lily, in her pink tights, under the pendants of false pearls on her forehead, looked like an angry savage, ready to fly at your throat.

That was her life. No adventures, really; theaters in which she caught on, theaters in which she didn’t go down so well; more or less prolonged applause; an encore or two; and, here and there, a bouquet large enough to fill a cab: those were the great events. And it was always the same show, on the same stage, from one end of England to the other; theaters and theaters; so many theaters that, in her memory, they ended, like the towns, by making only one. It was always herds of Roofers, swaying in unison, with flaxen wigs, scarlet legs, boyish voices; and “families,” “sisters,” “brothers,” all different, but all alike, going up the staircase to their dressing-rooms in wraps, like gouty people at a spa, and serios, serios, with choruses emphasized by dances. Sometimes, a new attraction, a Venus without tights, or a bare-breasted Salome, would draw whole groups, boys and girls mixed, to the wings, with their necks stretched toward the stage. And there were exotic features, too: conjurers from Malabar; boomerang-throwing bush-men; the Light of Asia, a Chinese girl without arms, an artificial product, like those beggar-monsters whom they cultivate in pots in the mountains of Navarre. She saw the boy-violinist again. Since that bite in the seat of his trousers, at Budapest, he had abandoned all hope of fame and was looking for an engagement in the orchestra. She saw the female-impersonator with the green eyes. She saw numbers and numbers. She ended by seeing them all again, in the various greenrooms. She heard names mentioned. People were coming on all round: Tom, singing-girls, dancing-girls. She would have to do something, too, after all, to get herself talked about! She had received a shock on opening The Era: they had not taken out her name! There was still a Miss Lily at Rathbone Place: her cousin Daisy, it appeared, a stranger, was there in her stead, under her name! And they were stealing her idea! The New Zealanders were now called the New Trickers; no doubt the turn which she had described to Pa. Something new, something new was essential. She must manage to hit upon something! She turned it all over in her head. There were too many Lilies, Lilians, Lillians; you saw nothing but Lillians on the posters. But what about a Lilia Godiva, quite naked on her bike, like the other on her horse? She would mimic the scene, love and despair, and she would think of something to raise a laugh! Peeping Tom, for instance, stretching out his neck and stealing a kiss as she passed. Oh, she would find a way—trust her!—of showing them what she had in her! And Jimmy and Trampy pursued her incessantly with their hateful memory. Trampy, she was told, was still the darling of the fair.

Lily was greatly astonished that he had not tried to obtain a divorce, on his side:

“He’s afraid,” she said to herself.

More than ever, she busied herself with collecting her witnesses; she would soon be rid of her tramp cyclist.

People also talked about Jimmy, whose reputation was still increasing. After a triumphant season at the Hippodrome, he had left for America. Jimmy was becoming a national champion. An article in The Era spoke of “our Jimmy.”

“He’s a friend of yours, Lily,” people said. “You ought to know all about him.”

Lily tossed her head, like one who could say a great deal if she would....

Oh, how she longed for revenge when she thought of that! Oh, if she could only have served them out somehow! If she could get The Performer Annual to send her those questions to answer: “Q. Your favorite town? Your favorite audience? Your idea of marriage? Your pet aversion?” wouldn’t she give it them hot, just! She thought of having her biography written, the real one. She herself sometimes jotted down things she remembered, on bits of paper, on the backs of envelopes, in her dressing-room; arranged her picture post-cards in order; called that writing her memoirs. She would crush them with her successes, give names and dates: that lord who wanted to travel with her, the fifty-pound diamond brooch he had given her. And bouquets, chocolates, sweets ... by the cart-load! That stage-manager who cried when she went away! All, all in love with her: yes, those and ever so many more!

She had so much to say that she did not know where to begin. She knocked up against too many people, men and women, without counting monkeys, parrots, dogs, cats, ponies, elephants; it all ended by getting mixed up in her head, like the theaters and the towns. She grew quite bewildered, among so many different things. She had seen everything and done everything. Once, during a week when she was “resting,” she had helped her landlady, who kept a public-house, to draw the beer and had waited on the customers, with her fifty-pound diamond brooch at her throat.

At a benefit performance, one night, when they were drinking champagne on the stage, actors, singers, artistes, all together, her pink tights had excited the dress-coats. Lily had been “pressed in company,” that is to say, surrounded till she did not know which way to turn, while her time was pretty well taken up with saying, “Paws off!” before, behind, on every side. She had triumphed at galas, above a tumult of heads and parasols: at Roundhay Park, among other places, beneath the motto, “Let Leeds flourish!” Feeling anxious about her future, she had consulted a “Zanzig” at Earl’s Court. Each week brought its surprises, its fresh knowledge. Lily learned something every day: “If you see a lamb in the fields with its head turned toward you, that’s lucky; if you see its tail first, it’s a sign of bad luck,” and the way of holding your hands, of placing your fingers, of whispering certain words in certain circumstances.

She collected halfpennies with holes in them. In Ireland, she had kissed the Blarney stone and picked shamrock in the ruins. She had lost her little mother-of-pearl hunchback in the labyrinth of underground passages at the Blackpool Tower Circus. The loss of this lucky charm had damped her spirits for a week. And her profits were small and her “exes” constantly increasing: tips to the call-boy, who cleaned her bike; tips to the stage-manager; half-crowns and five shillings in every direction. As soon as she had put a trifle by, a week without an engagement made her hard-up again. Though she traveled at reduced fares and contented herself with a ham sandwich or a slice of pork-pie on the road, she would never, never be able to repay Jimmy that money: she had not even paid Glass-Eye yet! Her dresses for on and off the stage swallowed up everything. And yet she couldn’t go about naked, like Lady Godiva!

And time passed and passed. Lily was growing old: she was eighteen! There were girls of her age who were already beyond work, used up, like that girl contortionist who had just been cut open for a tumor; and Lily had as yet achieved nothing! Oh, she ought to have signed for America or Australia, or else for Russia, of which she had heard wonders—Poland, the Parisienne, had just returned from there covered with diamonds—theaters that played all night and did not close till dawn, to the clicking of champagne-glasses. Lily dreamed of it, ecstatically: England was no good to her now. The New Trickers, with their own cheap Lily, were working her idea on the Bill and Boom Tour! If only she could have the continent! They were talking of a new music-hall which Harrasford was to open in Paris. He meant to make a palace of it, they said, and he was also stretching out his arm toward Antwerp, Cologne, Lyons, Marseilles, a continental trust....

“That’s what I ought to have,” thought Lily.

Her present life seemed empty, notwithstanding its excitement: it was like the sound of a band; nothing remained of it. Departures, constant departures from one town to another, always leaving, never staying. But for Glass-Eye’s company she would have cried, sometimes, for sheer melancholy, as at the sight of those really loving couples in the boarding-houses, on the stage itself; those babies in the arms of their Mas; it made her heart ache; the thought of it pursued her like the call of distant bells, while the train rushed into the darkness.

There were pages and pages like this in Lily’s autograph book. The last entry was that of a couple of friends, the dark one and the fair one:

Since Miss Lily’s arrival in Paris, her collection had been increased by the addition of a fervent declaration from her friend, the architect. This had been her welcome in Paris, the good fellow, no doubt, prophesied by the ideal pair of legs; yes, she had hardly reached Paris and already there were people dying of love around her, already a man at her feet.

Lily was delighted to meet this sincere friend again, a friend of her childhood, who, she said, had known her when she was “that high”: one poor devil the more ready to leave wife and children for her sake. The evening before, in her dressing-room, at the Bijou Theater, she had told him the story of her life since leaving her parents. It made her forget to ask about Harrasford and the new theater which he was to open: was it ready? The architect ought to know better than anybody. She would ask him to-night. And Lily lay turning this over, in the morning, in bed, notwithstanding her other cares, for she must get clear somehow, must see the agents that afternoon. She had plenty to do beside her turn. She had to busy herself with those thousand and one details.... She would never have believed that it was so hard to fill her three years’ book. Lily felt half-dead with fatigue before she started:

“Let me sleep!” said Lily, stretching herself in the big double bed which Glass-Eye had just left; “clear out! Let me sleep!”

But Glass-Eye made a rush at Lily, tickled her in the neck, stifled her laughter under the pillow: it was a necessity for them in the morning, those few minutes of horse-play, of thumps and smacks, which rang out on every side. Lily, at last, full-throated, with fluttering nostrils, cried out for mercy. The maid went off, Lily, now quite awake, remained alone, and her worries returned: no more love, no more music, as at the theater, no more purple rays, nothing but gloomy hours, a long day stretching out before her like a gray corridor. It was real life now: letters to write, costumes to mend, last night’s tights to wash in the basin.... Lily, sitting on the edge of her bed, took her purse from where she had hidden it under the bolster—a habit she had acquired in marriage, because of Trampy’s nightly ferretings—and emptied it on the sheets: one blue banknote; one, two, three gold coins. How much did that make in pounds, shillings and pence? Hardly seven pounds. It was all in vain for her to economize, like that Ma of a star, who counted the potatoes. It was all in vain for her to stint in every way, to keep back Glass-Eye’s wages for over a year, saying that she would pay her in a lump: she would have almost nothing left after the purchases which she had to make. It was true that, to-morrow, she would receive her fortnight’s pay; and she hoped for a renewal. She felt sure of it, if only because of the way in which the manager had taken her by the chin. Then a fortnight at the Brussels Alhambra—1 November, Flora, Amsterdam—10 January, Copenhagen—and, for the rest, her three years’ book was empty and each empty page represented months without work—all her profits would be swallowed up by her enforced idleness. She would never clear herself, never be able to pay Jimmy. Oh, she was furious with him because she could not discharge her debt to him once and for all, fling his money in his face, show him if people remained penniless long when they had her talent! That idea comforted Lily. And it was important that she should look nice to-day, to go the round of the agents. Lily dressed quickly, cunningly puffed out her bows, a trick she had learned as a child, and then, before putting on her dress, cooked the food with Glass-Eye, who had just come in with her parcels.

Then a dash of scent on the handkerchief, a touch of rouge on the lips and, leaving the room all untidy, she went out, followed by Glass-Eye, rigged out in a pair of thread mittens and carrying the sunshade and the wrist-bag. Quick, quick! For Lily knew by experience that it is well to be the first at the agent’s or else there’s nothing for you.

She did not dislike those walks through the Paris streets:

“Let’s have some fun,” she said to Glass-Eye.

By this, Lily meant laughing at those “tiny Frenchies”; and, if they ventured to accost her, crushing them with a “Vous hettes oun cochon!” Although, among the people she mixed with, agents, artistes, stage-hands, everybody spoke English, Lily had not come to Paris without learning a few words, “Oui ... Non ... Vous hettes oun cochon!” and so on, which were indispensable, she thought, to a girl who wanted to make herself respected on the continent, a girl alone, especially. And she loved to snub those damned parley-voos who dared to accost ladies. It seemed to lighten those days of visits to the agents, the very prospect of which gave her a headache in advance, because one had to think of everything, lithos, photographs, programs; and, if the agent wasn’t in, ruin one’s self in correspondence; and puff one’s self in every way, rub it into them that one was the cleverest person on earth....

“If you’re too modest,” said Lily, “they’ll take you at your word!”

And the pay would drop, in consequence.

“Never tell your salary!” was another of Lily’s favorite maxims.

She gave out that she made heaps, that a little star like her, the Marie Loyd of the bike, was only to be obtained for untold gold. But, at the agent’s, she had to cut her prices: there was no hiding anything from them; it was like going to the doctor.

“And, when you’re in work, everybody wants you; and, when you’re out of work, they have nothing for you: it’s help yourself as best you may!” she said.

She had to help herself now; and it was delicate business dealing with people who have only one idea in their heads, to swindle you, in order to curry favor with the managers by getting them cheap turns. They would have skinned you alive:

“Two pounds a week. Do you accept?”

“Go to Halifax!” Lily would reply in such cases, looking them straight in the face. It took courage to do that: the agent might grow bigger, become an enemy. She didn’t care! She wasn’t going to lower her price for anybody! And the commission she had to pay them was a torment to Lily; calculating the percentage made her head split—not to speak of the complicated nature of the contracts, worse than insurance policies. The poor artiste was bound down on every side, at the mercy of the manager; everything was foreseen, down to the prohibition of black tights, which concealed one’s poverty. And it was bad enough in England; but in the Dago countries, on the continent, it was worse.

“Can you understand a word of it, Glass-Eye?” asked Lily, explaining to her maid the tricks which the artiste had to fight against. “I don’t know how the small turns manage,” she concluded, in the tone of a woman who towers above all that.

Lily’s prettiness made the people in the street turn round to look at her. They would gaze at her cheeky feather, whisper, “You pretty, pretty darling!” in her ear. Lily, secretly delighted, held herself ready to crush the saucy rascal with a “How dare you?” like a lady who knows how to appreciate a compliment, without permitting the least familiarity. And when she approached the agency, she insisted on Glass-Eye’s keeping by her side, asked for things: her wrist-bag, her embroidered handkerchief. And her way of walking in! Lily pretended to be short-sighted, so as to see no one in the rotten lot. She sent in her card, sat down in the waiting-room. It reminded her of the dentist’s, with those pale people sitting on benches; those serio-comics, all over-fat; loud-voiced topical singers, who took the place of the real artistes, just like the bioscopes and cinematographs! There were also little families—small turns that had struggled hard to learn a few tricks—nobody wanted them, because they had no “chic” costumes, sometimes, or no lithos....

Those were received like dogs: a wretched couple was just coming out, a man and a woman, sad with a humility accustomed to rebuffs; and the agent drove them toward the door, with his voice:

“Eccentric mashers? No opening for you. Call again.”

Lily got a good reception, in the agent’s room; but there was nothing for her. And the agent saw her to the door, with a satisfied air and a knowing wink, as though to make the others believe ... Lily didn’t like that kind—her short-sightedness did not prevent her noticing it and blushing at it—but she was very pleased, all the same, to be seen to the door, before those small turns who were received like dogs....

On the pavement outside, the wretched couple came up to her shyly:

“Don’t you know us, Miss Lily? The Para-Paras.”

She had to listen to a pitiful tale. She heard nothing but that, when she went on her rounds of visits to the agents. Oh, the distress which she beheld there! It made Lily feel quite ill at night. A little more and she would have said her prayers, before getting into bed, to thank God that she hadn’t come to that. Poor Paras! Starving, no doubt, remaining for weeks in their garret, pretending that they had been performing in the provinces ... abroad.... Lily pictured them passing the stage-doorkeepers to whom they had sold their parrots and being greeted with a “What’s for breakfast, Polly?”

“Miss Lily,” they confessed, in a whisper, “you know such a lot of people: if ever you hear of anything for us, never mind where ...”

“Poor beggars!” thought Lily.

And her Ma had prophesied to her that, one day, she would be worse off than they! No, she would never be half so badly off! Why, she could have had anything she wanted, motor-cars, Paris gowns, for the asking.

“Glass-Eye, my bag!” And, handing a small gold coin to the wretched couple, “There ... between artistes, you know ... give it back when you can; good-by. Did you notice, Glass-Eye,” asked Lily, as she walked away, “how flattered they were when I said, ‘Between artistes?’ They looked quite touched.”

But there was no time to waste in nonsense, on a day when she was calling on the agents. The thing was to get there first; and Lily consulted her addresses....

She was exasperated at being obliged, with her talent, to climb all those stairs, to hang about in the waiting-room, she, Lily Clifton! And it reeked of vice, stunk with the trashy scent of the “not-up-to-muches:” merely to look at them suggested faces seen in Piccadilly at night or in the Burlington Arcade.

Lily sent in her card, threw a short-sighted glance around her and remained standing, like a lady who is never kept waiting and who is sure to be received at once. And, with her head bent down and her chin in her gold-spotted tie, she turned over the pages of Le Courrier des Cafés Concerts on the table ... names which she didn’t know ... the small “numbers” of the continent ... so much the better ... all the more chance for her. But the engagement which she dreamed of did not offer this time either. What the agent did propose to her, almost without lowering his voice, with the door open, before everybody, was the grated private boxes of South America ... the private rooms of Russia ... accompanied, at a startled movement on Lily’s part, by this concession:

“You needn’t sleep there, you know!”

To talk like that to a lady! Lily felt stifled. Was that what she had learned the bike for? To exhibit herself after the show, at the customers’ disposal? Lily could have fainted on the stairs, as she went down.

“One of those!” she said. “Not I!”

And she continued her weary pilgrimage of stairs, from agent to agent.

“I must have six months filled up in my book before to-night!” she said, determined to visit them all, small and large, rather than go back empty-handed.

There were some who suggested to her that ten per cent. was really very little....

“I like their style!” thought Lily. “They want an extra sop thrown to them: one might as well work for nothing!”

She thanked them, nevertheless, so as not to make enemies of them—one never knows—and the agent doesn’t matter so much; but the assistant, who happens to have known you when you were “that high” ... better give him a tip, lest he should round on you.

She also saw a former artiste, a friend of Pa’s, who had become an agent.

“Miss Lily? Lily Clifton? What are you doing now? Won’t you see my secretary? Leave your address with him.”

“Fellows whom Pa helped!” she grumbled angrily, as she went down the stairs. “They’re the worst of all! They make you pay for the humiliation of their own failure on the stage!”

Presently, she came to an agent who practised almost in the street, in an arcade somewhat like the Burlington, an agent for everything ... circus, music-hall, theater ... artistes formed in a week ... white flesh at famine salaries. There were all sorts of people there, a moving heap of frayed velvet and shabby plush. Lily passed by with great dignity. Next, she came to the big agent, with offices in Berlin and London ... the ting-ting of telephones, the tick-tack of typewriters all day ... business pure and simple, an exchange for supple loins, swelling biceps, muslin skirts, pigeon’s eggs ... a sheaf of stars who, from there, radiated over Australia, America, England, the Eastern and Western Trusts, Bill and Boom, Harrasford, the continent. Lily felt a little ill at ease as she entered—she had a pain in the pit of her stomach, as when she used to expect a smacking—and again in the private office crammed with papers and registers, when alone with the agent, who looked at her card, he seated, she standing. Then, suddenly:

“Lily? Miss Lily? Your price is two hundred francs a week, I believe.”

“What!” said Lily. “With a bike and a maid?”

“It’s what you had at Maidstone, so I was told.”

“What a lie!” said Lily. “Three hundred francs is the lowest I’ve ever had. I’ll show you my contracts.”

“Don’t trouble,” said the agent. “I thought ... we can get plenty at that price, you know ... in your style....”

“In my style, perhaps ... but not me.”

“Pooh, the audience doesn’t know the difference.” And he started looking through a register, turning over the pages and repeating mechanically, like a refrain or a lullaby, “The audience doesn’t care a hang; it’s all the same to the audience.” And, suddenly, with his hand flat on the open book and the other ready to take up the pen, with a piercing eye fixed upon Lily, “I can give you a month at a thousand francs ... they want a girl in tights ... at Lisbon.”

“Lisbon?” said Lily. “That’s at the Colosseo. A thousand francs to go to the Colosseo, with one’s luggage and a maid?”

“Well?” broke in the agent. “And what do you want a maid for, you extravagant little beast? Why not your maid’s family while you’re about it? A thousand francs: will you take it? I’ve got some one who will, if you don’t.”

Lily had to say yes or no quickly. Her forehead was wrinkled with the effort of turning the francs into shillings, the shillings into pounds. She consulted her book, like an artiste who doesn’t know, who may not be free, for a whole month. She lowered her chin in her tie, but without smiling ... had a cramp in her stomach, rather ... at a pinch, by leaving Glass-Eye in Paris.... After Lisbon, one generally had Madrid and Barcelona and returned by Marseilles and Lyons. Friends of hers had done well like that. But to accept a lower salary once meant accepting it always, in establishments of the same class; it meant reducing her price, for always, by two pounds a week, at least.

“A thousand francs: will you have it?”

And Lily:

“No, it’s impossible! I can’t take less than twelve pounds a week.” And she began to sum up her proofs: “Look here, at the Hippodrome, Glasgow ... at the Palace, Leeds....”

But the agent wouldn’t listen, shut up the register, was sorry:

“Can’t do it ... bad season ... cyclists to be had for the asking. Good-by.”

“Good-by.”

And Lily went out, went down the stairs, feeling half-inclined to go back and accept; but no! Lower her prices? Never! Oh, those cheap artistes, those black-legs deserved to be hanged! Great lazybones who learn a few baby tricks on the bike or the tight-rope, back-shop acrobats, slop-shop Lilies, who practise at a safe distance, by watching you on the stage, through an opera-glass. They cut your prices by half; they would work for a handful of rice, like a monkey. They deserved to have the iron curtain come down on them, and flatten them out like black-beetles, the wind-bags!

“I say, Glass-Eye, perhaps it’s they who fell into the orchestra, was it, when I got my thighs full of lamp-glass from the footlights, eh? They copy you, think themselves artistes.... What! Yes? You say they are, Glass-Eye? Damn it, I’ll have your eye out!”

And Lily had a fit of laughing when she saw Glass-Eye, who hadn’t said a word, raise her elbow in affright to ward off the blow.

Lily held the banister with one hand, leaned on Maud’s shoulder with the other and laughed and laughed, only to see her maid’s terrified face, a regular fat freak shrinking before the belt. My! She would have fallen with laughing, if Glass-Eye had not held her up; she plugged her lips with her scented handkerchief, slapped her thighs. She had never laughed so much in her life. She already felt consoled for all her bothers:

“Watch me, Glass-Eye! This is the way to go down-stairs!”

And, nimbly as a bird, Lily hopped on the banister, with her back to the wall, and—w-w-w-w-whew!—slid down to the bottom, keeping her balance faultlessly, sprang to her feet on the last stair and, with a wave of the hand, as after a successful trick:

“There! What do you think of that?”

Lily was not given to long spells of sadness. Reaction always followed immediately upon her worries, made the thousand and one vexations of a day like this easier for her to bear. The compliments which caught her ear in the street comforted her too:

“You pretty, pretty ...”

But she had no time to listen. Six months in her book before night! As time passed, Lily would have been content with less. And trot, trot, trot: while she was at it; then she would end by seeing whether they would get her for a handful of rice.

This idea amused her. Lily had confidence in her talent and continued her visits. She saw them all: other agents, former bosses or profs, who had sucked apprentices dry to the marrow and who continued their evil practices in their offices; this sort sized you up with the eye of a slave-dealer. There was also the lucky agent, who had started a sensational attraction, a Laurence or a Light of Asia. This agent had a touch of pride about him, with his eternal, “I gave her her first start!” as though to say:

“They’ll never find another like her, never! They don’t turn them out like that now!”

And all this was a pretext for offering you ridiculous terms, because you were neither Light of Asia nor Laurence. It was no use Lily’s boasting of having declined Bill and Boom and Harrasford, pretending to be an artiste for whom the managers were competing against one another with sheaves of banknotes. There was nothing for her at this one’s ... nothing for her at the others’, either ... only a scrap of news of her family, through an artiste. The New Trickers were all the rage in Scotland, it seemed; an engagement in London, at the Palace, was waiting for them. When Lily heard that, she turned pale with envy: so it was on their account that she had been refused that tour in England, so that they might have it! Patience! Her