fter several slight
mistakes in the way, she descried ahead of her a large sign
painted on the wall of a three-story brick building:

MAURICE BLYNN, THEATRICAL AGENT
ALL KINDS OF TALENT PLACED AND SUPPLIED

After some investigation she discovered back of the saloon which
occupied the street floor a grimy and uneven wooden staircase
leading to the upper stories. At the first floor she came face
to face with a door on the glass of which was painted the same
announcement she had read from the wall. She knocked timidly,
then louder. A shrill voice came from the interior:

"The door's open. Come in."

She turned the knob and entered a small, low-ceilinged room
whose general grime was streaked here and there with smears of
soot. It contained a small wooden table at which sprawled a
freckled and undernourished office boy, and a wooden bench where
fretted a woman obviously of "the profession." She was dressed
in masses of dirty white furbelows. On her head reared a big
hat, above an incredible quantity of yellow hair; on the hat
were badly put together plumes of badly curled ostrich feathers.
Beneath her skirt was visible one of her feet; it was large and
fat, was thrust into a tiny slipper with high heel ending under
the arch of the foot. The face of the actress was young and
pertly pretty, but worn, overpainted, overpowdered and
underwashed. She eyed Susan insolently.

"Want to see the boss?" said the boy.

"If you please," murmured Susan.

"Business?"

"I'm looking for a--for a place."

The boy examined her carefully. "Appointment?"

"No, sir," replied the girl.

"Well--he'll see you, anyhow," said the boy, rising.

The mass of plumes and yellow bangs and furbelows on the bench
became violently agitated. "I'm first," cried the actress.

"Oh, you sit tight, Mame," jeered the boy. He opened a solid
door behind him. Through the crack Susan saw busily writing at
a table desk a bald, fat man with a pasty skin and a veined and
bulbous nose.

"Lady to see you," said the boy in a tone loud enough for both
Susan and the actress to hear.

"Who? What name?" snapped the man, not ceasing or looking up.

"She's young, and a queen," said the boy. "Shall I show her in?"

"Yep."

The actress started up. "Mr. Blynn----" she began in a loud,
threatening, elocutionary voice.

"'Lo, Mame," said Blynn, still busy. "No time to see you.
Nothing doing. So long."

"But,