“You Shakespearian actress!” He laughed again, longer this time.  “But I have not forgotten you,” he resumed.  “In addition to all that I have taught you, I am going to leave you something.  Here,” he fumbled out a square envelope and Cake took it between her hands.  “Take that to the address written on it,” said the lodger, “and see what the gentleman does.”  He began to laugh again.

“Noyes——­” he cried and broke off to curse feebly but volubly.  Cake did not even glance in his direction.  She went away out of the room, too utterly stunned with fatigue to look at the letter in her dingy hand.

The next morning the lodger was dead.  He was buried in the potters’ field quite near his old landlady.

This second funeral, such as it was, closed the shelter that Cake, for want of a more fitting name, had called home.  She decided to put all her years of bitterly acquired learning to the test.  And as she best knew what she had bought and paid for it she felt she could not fail.  She unfolded from a scrap of newspaper the envelope presented her by the lodger and carefully studied the address.

Cake could both read and write, having acquired these arts from a waiter at Maverick’s, who also helped her steal the broken meats with which she secured her artistic education.  And, watching the steady disappearance of the food, this waiter marvelled that she got no fatter as she grew upward, hovering about in hope of becoming her lover if she ever did.  But even if that miracle had ever been accomplished the helpful waiter would still have waited.  Cake’s conception of a real lady was Queen Katherine; Cleopatra her dream of a dangerous, fascinating one.  And what chance in the world for either with a waiter?

Cake read the name and address upon the envelope freely as the hopeful bread-caster had taught her:  Arthur Payson Noyes, National Theatre.  With the simplicity and dispatch that characterized her, she went to that place.  To the man reposing somnolently in the broken old chair beside the door she said she had a letter for Mr. Noyes.  The doorkeeper saw it was a large, swanking envelope with very polite writing.  He straightened up in the chair long enough to pass her in, and then slumped down again.

Cake found herself in a queer, barnlike place, half room and half hallway, feebly illumined by a single electric bulb suspended above the door.  Very composedly she looked about her.  If Mr. Arthur Noyes lived in this place, he was one of her own kind and there was no need for any palpitation on her part.  Anyway, she was looking solely for her chance to become famous, and she brought to this second stage of her search the same indifference to externals, the same calm, unfaltering courage as she had to the first.

“Now, then,” said a voice briskly.  “Say what you want.  We have not advertised for any extra people.  At least—­not this year.”

A short, stout man emerged from the shadows.  He was very blond, with his hair cut snapper, and his pale eyes popped perpetual astonishment.  She returned his look steadily and well.  She knew she was born to be famous, and fame has a certain beauty of dignity utterly lacking in mere success.