“You can brush your hair if you want to,” said Cornelius. “The supper bell will ring right off. I'll take you down with me.”
“Will there be room?” asked Herbert.
“Oh, yes; I'll arrange about that. If you like you can room with me, and I guess I can fix it so you needn't pay more than four dollars a week, getting your lunch outside.”
“I wish you would,” said Herbert, who felt that, dirty as the room was, it would be more like home to him than where he was wholly unacquainted.
At the table below, Herbert found a seat next to Cornelius. There were other clerks at the table whom Mr. Dixon knew, also two or three married couples, and two extra ladies.
“That lady is an actress,” whispered Cornelius, pointing to a rather faded woman, of about thirty, on the opposite side of the table.
“Is she?” returned Herbert, examining her with considerable curiosity. “Where does she play?”
“At the Olympic,” said Mr. Dixon. “She is Rosalie Vernon.”
“That's a pretty name.”
“It's only her stage name. Her real name is Brown.”