I'll come."

I followed him upstairs, and in a moment I was ushered into the presence
of the famous soubrette.

"Hullo, kid!" she exclaimed, "sit down. I saw you in the audience and
kind-a took a notion to your face. How d'ye do?"

She extended a heavily bejewelled hand. She was plump, pleasant-looking,
with a piquant smile and flaxen hair. I ordered the waiter to bring her
a bottle of wine.

"I've heard a lot about you," I said tentatively.

"Yes, I guess so," she answered. "Most folks have up here. It's a sort
of reflected glory. I guess if it hadn't been for Bill I'd never have
got into the limelight at all."

She sipped her champagne thoughtfully.

"I came in here in '97, and it was then I met Bill. He was there with
the coin all right. We got hitched up pretty quick, but he was such a
mut I soon got sick of him. Then I got skating round with another guy.
Well, an egg famine came along. There was only nine hundred samples of
hen fruit in town, and one store had a corner on them. I went down to
buy some. Lord! how I wanted them eggs. I kept thinking how I'd have
them done, shipwrecked, two on a raft or sunny side up, when who should
come along but Bill. He sees what I want, and quick as a flash what does
he do but buy up the whole bunch at a dollar apiece! 'Now,' says he to
me, 'if you want eggs for breakfast just come home where you belong.'

"Well, say, I was just dying for them eggs, so I comes to my milk like a
lady. I goes home with Bill."

She shook her head sadly, and once more I filled up her glass.

She prattled on with many a gracious smile, and I ordered another bottle
of wine. In the next box I could hear the squeaky laugh of Hard-pan
Henry and the teasing tones of his inamorata. The visits of the Black
Prince to this box with fresh bottles had been fast and furious, and at
last I heard the woman cry in a querulous voice: "Say, that black man
coming in so often gives me a pain. Why don't you order a case?"

Then the man broke in with his senile laugh:

"All right, Lulu, whatever you say goes. Say, Prince, tote along a case,
will you?"

Surely, thought I, there's no fool like an old fool.

A little girl was singing, a little, winsome girl with a sweet childish
voice and an innocent face. How terribly out of place she looked in that
palace of sin. She sang a simple, old-world song full of homely pathos
and gentle feeling. As she sang she looked down on those furrowed faces,
and I saw that m