"Not closer than a music-hall agent, Mordy. They're the nailers. And what would have been the good of giving that poor feller twenty thick uns for a song he was glad to sell for five? He'd only have drunk himself into his coffin a little sooner."
Here the gentleman in the white hat, who was on too friendly terms with his professional sisters to think of removing that article of apparel, broke in upon the conversation.
"Business is business, Queen of my Soul," he said, "but, if you expect me to wait while you and Mordy indulge in casual patter, you don't know the kind of man I am. Come, old chap, I want your private ear for a little bit."
He took the agent by the buttonhole, and led him into a corner, where they conversed in whispers for a few minutes, while the two stars of the halls, the girl with fierce eyebrows and dark hair who sang "Rats," and the girl with flaxen fringe and pink cheeks, who sang baby-songs in a pinafore, walked about the room, or stood in front of a looking-glass twitching their veils, and correcting the slant of their hats, whistling softly the while with rosy, pursed-up lips.
"I say, Bill, are you going to stand Chippie and me a scrap of lunch?" inquired Miss Vernon, when the whispered interview was over.
"Nought o' t' sort, my angel; but I'll take you to a snug little Italian ristoranty near Leicester Square, where you'll get the best lunch in London, and I'll give you the inestimable advantage of my company while you eat it—but when it comes to 'lardishong,' it must be Yorkshire, my pretty ones, distinctly Yorkshire."
"There's a little too much Yorkshire about you, Bill. Hurry up! Ta, ta, Mordy. Skip the gutter!" wheeling sharply on her Louis heels, with an artful turn of her skirt that revealed the crisp flounces and lace ruchings of a cherry-coloured silk petticoat. "For surely you'll be your pint stoup, and surely I'll be mine?" shrilled the cantatrice, in a voice whose metallic timbre made the electric globes shiver.
The three professionals bounced out of the room, and Faunce heard the ladies' heels rattle down the stairs, and the hall door close behind them with a bang.
"Nice, quiet, refined style, Miss Vernon," he said, as he seated himself opposite the agent.
"Not quite what you'd like for a permanency; gets on your nerves after a bit—eh, Mr. Faunce?" commented Mordaunt. "But she knocks 'em at the halls with her 'Rats' and her 'Demon Drink.' She can make their blood run cold one minute, and make 'em roar with laughter the next. Her father died with the horrors, and she's a first-rate mimic. She got every trick of the thing from watching the old man. It ain't every girl of eighteen would have had the grit to do it. The song ain't a 'Ta-ra-ra,' but it has caught on, and she's making a pot of money. And now, my dear sir, what's up with you? Who are you lookin' for, and what's it all about?"