"No. I'm a bird of passage."
"What is your name?"
"I am Miss Hampton," she said, and she hoped that he might have heard of her. But he hadn't. And she explained herself. "I'm to play at the Euclid Theatre Christmas night."
"An actor?" he said.
"Well," she admitted, "some say so, and some won't hear of it."
"How much money do you earn?"
"Two hundred dollars a week."
Mr. Holiday wrote that in his note-book.
"I've got some little nieces and nephews in New York," she volunteered.
"Don't you think it's hard to be a genuine aunt and to have to spend
Christmas alone in a strange place?"
"Not for two hundred dollars a week," said Mr. Holiday unsympathetically. "You ought to thank your stars and garters."