ed and that
Lily would starve in London and a jolly good thing too, that she could
sleep in Leicester Square for all they cared: when she heard this behind
the door, Glass-Eye almost fainted. Without a word to a soul, she had
packed up her parcel and gone to join Lily; and Lily, in her misery, cried
for joy when she saw the decent girl, who offered her her savings, twelve
shillings in all, saying:

"Take me with you, Miss Lily; I'll wait on you for nothing. Take me, take
me!"

Oh, not to feel alone, to have some one beside you who loves you: that had
consoled Lily....

The next day, accompanied by Glass-Eye, she called on the agents, in the
Leicester Square quarter, at the risk of meeting Pa, or Trampy, or Jimmy;
but who cared? With her umbrella in her hand, she feared nobody and did
not give a fig for any of them.

Nothing for her at Harrasford's, where the Warwicks were starring. Very
well, she'd come back again some other time! And straight on to Bill and
Boom's in Whitcomb Mansions, below Jimmy. As she climbed the stairs, Lily
screwed up her eyes, like a short-sighted person, for fear of meeting
Jimmy, prepared a haughty attitude; but she saw no one. She was not kept
waiting, was shown in at once to Boom's office. Lily Clifton? the New
Zealander on Wheels? Straight away a contract! And Lily left with twenty
music-halls in her pocket! Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and so on: a
week in each town, beginning on Monday next. And that was how she got
engagements through her gentlemen friends!

The next day, she borrowed some money on her contracts from the Brixton
financier: "loans from five pounds upward, in the strictest confidence."
Then, proposed and seconded by two artistes, she joined the Variety
Artistes' Federation and, in return for ten shillings, received the red
card of membership. She paid another ten shillings and the same for
Glass-Eye, her maid, to the M. H. A. R. A. and obtained the right, for one
year, to travel at reduced fares, including an insurance against
accidents: five hundred pounds to her heirs in case of death--her
heirs!--and two hundred and fifty pounds if she lost a hand or foot in a
railway accident; and one hundred and fifty for a serious injury. Then she
bought a big gollywog, for her dressing-room, and a little lucky charm for
her watch-chain--a closed black hand, with the thumb between the fingers,
as a preservative against falls--and with that and her bike she would have
set ou