"Good business!" said Miss Lascelles. "In some places you 'get it hot' if you ask for it." "By rights some places shouldn't take professionals," returned Mrs. Cheney. "I've 'eard many tales. Miss Chamberlain--her on the mantelpiece--was telling me that where she was in Brighton they wouldn't allow her to have her uncle in to see her. Such a quiet, ladylike gal, too!" "Can such things be?" cried Rosalind. "Is a poor girl to be cut off from her own flesh and blood because she's in diggings?" "Ah, I don't wonder at your asking!" said Mrs. Cheney. "Not, mind you," she added, "but what letting lodgings over a number of years makes one a bit suspicious of uncles. I've known a gentleman brought to these very rooms after the show on three different Monday evenings as the uncle of three different young ladies. And dreadful taken aback he was when he see me each time!" "I'm afraid those were flighty girls," said Rosalind severely. "Untruthful they was," said Mrs. Cheney, "and so I told 'em. I say nothing about visitors, I'm not that evil-minded. So long as the lady pays a bit extra for the gas, and the gentleman don't slam the door when he goes, I like to think well of everyone. But I 'ate lies." She drew the cork, and retired; and Rosalind said, "Well, what about the show, Tat? What sort of part have you got?" "The part's rather good," said Miss Lascelles. "Hurrah! What screw?" "Rotten--thirty-five shillings. I had to take what I could get; I've been 'out' a long time. They're paying awful salaries in this crowd; the chorus only get about fifteen bob, I believe--they're half of them novices." "I say! Whose crowd is it?" "It's a Syndicate; nobody ever heard of it before. And the Tenor has such a cold he could hardly speak at the dress-rehearsal last night--goodness knows how he's going to sing to-morrow." "Who is your principal woman?" "She has backed out; they've put somebody else into the part at the last minute. And the scenery has still to come down--it's a bit of a muddle all round. I wish I could have got into a better thing, but I was so hard up--you ought to have seen where I was lodging! I tried to get 'shopped' last month as an Extra. That speaks!" "An Extra? No? Tat! why didn't you write to me?" exclaimed Rosalind reproachfully.