as the best
Patience yet seen in the district amateur _or_ professional, that any
burlesque manager would jump at her, that in five years, if she liked,
she might be getting a hundred a week, and that Dolly Chose, the idol of
the Tivoli and the Pavilion, had not half her style. It also appeared
that Milly had no brains of her own, that the leading man had taught her
all her business, that her voice was thin and a trifle throaty, that she
was too vulgar for the true Savoy tradition, and that in five years she
would have gone off to nothing. But the optimists carried the argument.
Sundry men who had seen Meshach in the second row of the stalls
expressed a keen desire to ask the old bachelor point-blank what he
thought of his nephew's daughter; but Meshach did not happen to come
into the Tiger.

When the crowd had thinned somewhat, Harry Burgess entered hurriedly and
called for a whisky and potass, which the barmaid, who fancied him,
served on the instant.

'I wanted to get a wreath,' he confided to her. 'But Pointon's is
closed.'

'Why, Mr. Burgess,' she said smiling, 'there's a lot of flowers in the
coffee-room, and with them and the leaves off that laurel down the yard,
and a bit of wire, I could make you one in no time.'

'Can you?' He seemed doubtful.

'Can I!' she exclaimed. 'I should think I could, and a beauty! As soon
as these gentleman are gone----'

'It's awfully kind of you,' said Harry, brightening. 'Can you send it
round to me at the artists' entrance in half an hour?'

She nodded, beaming at the prospect. The manufacture of that wreath
would be a source of colloquial gratification to her for days.

Harry politely responded to such remarks as 'Devilish good show,
Burgess,' drank in one gulp another whisky and potass, and hastened
away. The remainder of the company soon followed; the barmaid
disappeared from the bar, and her assistant was left languidly to watch
a solitary pair of topers who would certainly not leave till the clock
showed eleven.

* * * * *

The auditorium during the entr'acte was more ceremonious, but not less
noisy, than the bar-parlour of the Tiger. The pleasant warmth, the
sudden increase of light after the fall of the curtain, the certainty of
a success, and the consciousness of sharing in the brilliance of that
success--all these things raised the spirits, and produced the loquacity
of an intoxication. The individuality of each person was set f