Many folk of Poplar must have experienced only a mixed sorrow at the sudden end of Batty Bertello. For if the old dad had not gone out so suddenly Gina would never have been forced to start work to support Mumdear; and had she not started just at that moment, she would never have become a public character; and in that event we should have lost—what should we have lost? Well, everything that in those days made life worth living. For it was Gina, that mop-haired, fragile baby, who taught thousands of us how to live. And her beginnings as a public character were in this wise. The turn of the Casino Juveniles consisted of vocal _soli_, concerted numbers, _pas seuls_, and ensembles, in the costumes of the early nineteenth century. It was entitled _Old-fashioned Flowers_ (you may remember it), and, with a nice catholicity, it embraced the minuet and the pavane no less than the latest coon song and dance. At the end of the first show, Madame expressed herself as well satisfied with Gina. “Seems to have a real—what you might call flare—for the stage. Understands what she’s doing. Made for a dancer. Let’s hope she don’t grow.” For the tragedy of the good lady’s life was that her children would grow, and every two years or so they had to be weeded out and new little girls laboriously trained to take the places of those who possessed neither the divine grace of the juvenile nor the self-assurance of the adult. She had a much-furrowed face, and swore hybrid oaths at electricians and stage hands. They understood. For the first week, Gina thoroughly enjoyed herself, and, true to her creed, forced the rest of the company to enjoy her. Sharp at five every afternoon, she had to appear at the centre where the private omnibus collected the children and whisked them away to the first hall, where they were an early number—on at seven-five—for the first house. Then, out of that hall to another at the far side of London, where they were a concluding number for the first house. Then back to the starting-place for the second house, and off again to finish at the distant hall. At about one in the morning she would trip home to supper, which Mumdear left in the kitchen oven. So to bed. At ten o’clock next morning Mumdear would bring her a cup of tea and a cigarette, and at about noon she would descend, unless a rehearsal were called for eleven.