e to say, "How do you do?" to
her.

And, amid the thunder of the band or the lull of the _entr'actes_, Lily
received tidings of her Pa and Ma and details of what happened after her
flight, as reported by Glass-Eye Maud. After Lily's departure, they had
hunted everywhere. Then Ma thought of looking in the trunk: the pretty
dress was gone. Then they had rushed to the theater: no Lily. Then they
had guessed: Lily had run away. Ma fell on her knees and cried and cried.
Pa seized his revolver and spoke of going to shoot the man who had robbed
him of his child! His little Lily gone! And the contracts had to be
canceled and Pa did not go out for a week and the house remained still and
silent for a month. Pa, thoroughly upset, cried whenever Lily's name was
mentioned and was near dying of shame when he felt himself blamed, even by
those who used to congratulate him on his way of turning out an artiste.
And Nunkie himself maintained that one must know how to handle young
girls: gentleness above all.

Lily bit her lips when she heard that. Her little nose tingled. She
hardened her features, wrinkled her obstinate forehead, lest she also
should cry:

"If I had to do it again, I would!" she said quickly, just like that,
without reflecting, in the way one says a thing to one's self which one
knows to be untrue.

They also told her things that made her laugh. Glass-Eye Maud no longer
left her hole, cried like a tap, so much so that one day, Ma, noticing an
insipid taste in the porridge, threatened her with the sack if that sort
of thing went on.

As for business, people did not know exactly. Pa, they said, had written
to a Hauptmann's "fat freak" to take Lily's place. The reply ran:

"No, thanks, I'm all right where I am.

"Fat Freak."

The signature was underlined, for people had ended by knowing about Pa's
disrespectful remarks. Lily laughed when she heard this: my!

"I will come ... when you take to wearing braces!" another had answered.

This was an allusion to the blows with the belt; and Lily, with head
thrown back, full-throated, her hand on her heart, laughed ... laughed ...
laughed:

"Bravo, girls!" she said, applauding with her thumbnail.

And Tom? Tom had had the boot, with a bang on the nose, for carrying
letters to Lily. For Pa ended by learning all: some one had told him.

"Jimmy, that son of a gun!" said Lily.

And Jimmy himself, what had bec