It was an Italian club that met there on Sunday nights, and some two or three hundred hairdressers and restaurant-keepers of swarthy complexion sat in groups at little round tables with their wives and sweethearts (chiefly English women), smoking and drinking and laughing at the performance on the stage.
Aggie went down to her dressing-room under the floor, and Glory sat at a table with a yellow-haired lady and a dark-eyed man. A negro without the burnt cork was twanging a banjo and cracking the jokes of the corner-man.
“That's my style—a merry touch-and-go,” said the lady. And then glancing at Glory, “Singing to-night, my dear?”
Glory shook her head.
“Thort you might be a pro' p'rhaps. Use ter be myself when I was in the bally at the Lane. Married now, my dear; but I likes to come of a Sunday night when the kids is got to bed.”
Then Aggie danced a skirt dance, and there were shouts of applause for her, and she came back and danced again. When she reappeared in jacket and hat, and with her stage-box in her hand, the girls crushed their way out. Going through the bar they were invited to drink by several of the men who were standing there, but they got into the streets at last.
“They're rather messy, those bars,” said Aggie; “but managers like you to come round and tyke something after you've done your turn—if it's only a cup of cawfy.”
“Do you like this life?” said Glory, taking a long breath.
“Yes, awfully!” said Aggie.
Their next visit was to a Swiss club, which did not greatly differ from the Italian one, except that the hall was more shabby, and that the audience consisted of French and Swiss waiters and skittish young English milliners. The girls had taken their hats and cloaks off and sat dressed like dolls in white muslin with long streamers of bright ribbon. A gentleman sang the “Postman's Knock,” with the character accompaniment of a pot hat and a black-edged envelope, a lady sang “Maud” in silk tights and a cloak, Aggie danced her skirt dance, and then the floor was cleared for a ball.