"Then you must 'ave one took, and 'ave sticky-backs made from it."
"Yes, fifty a shilling. Don't you know 'em? I've got some stuck in my visitors' book. I'll get it, and let you see."
She returned in due course and presented the volume.
"I've got a message for you," she went on. "I jist mentioned to the ladies and gents in the sitting-room, when I went in to git the book, what I wanted it for, and when they 'eard you'd never bin on the stage and was thinking of starting, they sent up an invite that if you'd take supper with 'em when they return from the 'all this evening, they'd be very 'appy to give you some advice."
"Oh, that is kind of them," declared Evarne with alacrity. "Will you tell them I'll be very pleased to accept?"
Mrs. Burling took her departure, and the girl amused herself by studying the visitors' book. Clearly, no praise of the worthy landlady was deemed too exaggerated, and quite often tactful self-advertisements had been unblushingly inserted by the writers. Evarne studied the method by which it was achieved, with a view to future use. Thus "Wally Wentworth, Mrs. Wally Wentworth and Miss Arundale Sutherland, on highly successful return visit with sketch, 'The Perils of the Dark,' stopped here, and found complete satisfaction with both cooking and accommodation." Very ingenious!
Another, a gentleman whose jolly countenance was preserved to future ages through the medium of a "sticky-back," declared—
"Owing to being braced up by Mother Burling's high-class cookery, sang 'Cats a-walking on the tiles' and 'Lazy Lily's Lullaby' as never before! Brought down the house!"
"The Giggling Coon Girls" were also full of praises of Mrs. Burling, but did not forget to add that at the music hall they were "encored nightly."