of Reynolds’s Newspaper, The Beauteous Bessie Bilhook—­“the Queen of Serio-Comics” was scandalously autobiographic, and the old plantation songster—­looking unreal with his washed face—­was with difficulty dissuaded from displaying his ability to dance on the table without smashing anything.  The climax was reserved for the demure one-legged gymnast, who suddenly produced a pistol and discharged it in the air.  When the panic subsided, he explained to the landlord and the company that he was “paying his shot.”

“That’s a hint for me to discharge the bill,” said Nelly, adroitly, and, thanking everybody effusively for the happiness afforded her, she hurried home to Oxbridge Terrace, to wash it all away in nursery tea.  The young Lee Carters made a restful spectacle with their shining innocent faces, and she almost wished they would never grow up.

As her success grew, offers from the pantomimes and even the legitimate stage began to reach her.  But now she would not make the step.  At the Halls she was her own mistress, able to arrange at her own convenience with orchestras.  Even Rosalind would have meant long rehearsals and a complex interference with her governess-life.

At the theatres, too, to judge by all she heard, a sordid side of the profession was accentuated.  The players played for their own hands, and even the greatest did not disdain to “queer” the effects of their subordinates, whenever such effects did not heighten their own.  Hamlet had been known to be jealous of the ghost, and the success of his sepulchral bass.  It was in fact a world of jostling jealousies, as hidden from the public as the prompter.  In the Halls she was her own company and her own playwright and her own composer.  She had her elbows free.

And even here Bessie Bilhook, whose vanity was a byword in Lower Bohemia, and who had arrogantly assumed the sovereignty of the Serio-Comics, refused to appear on the same programmes unless her name was printed twice as large as Nelly O’Neill’s, and was further displayed on a board outside, alone in its nine-inch glory.  Again, actresses were recognised by the newspapers; the Halls had as yet no status.  Their performers were not so photographed; indeed, Eileen refused to sit.  She desired this obscurer form of celebrity.  If her fame should ever reach Mrs. Lee Carter, the game would be nearly up.  Her poor mother might even suffer the shock of it; perhaps the professional future of her brothers would be injured.  Her sedate life had grown as dear as her noisy life, she loved the transition to the innocent home circle.

Yet in this very domesticity lay a danger.  It provoked her to an ever broader humour on the stage.  She let herself go, like a swimmer emboldened by a boat behind.  Eileen O’Keeffe she felt would rescue Nelly O’Neill if licence carried her too near the falls.  It was so irresistibly seductive, this swift response of the audience to the wink of suggestion.  Like a vast lyre, the Hall vibrated to the faintest breath of roguishness.  Almost in contemptuous mockery one was tempted to experiment....