Poland, the Parisienne. Page 123. Frontispiece.
THE
BILL-TOPPERS
By ANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
With Illustrations
BY THE AUTHOR
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1909
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
August
TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS
THE STARS!
THE BILL-TOPPERS
THE BILL-TOPPERS
OVERTURE
All around stretched the great blue sky and the bluesea of the Gulf of Bengal.
Mrs. Clifton lay dozing at full length on a pillowedbench and her husband sat near her and followed hisLily, his daughter, with his eyes: his Lily, eight years old,“that high,” waving among the passengers the white coralnecklace which Pa had bought her on leaving Australia;his Lily, his star, his New Zealander on Wheels! HisLily who had had such successes at Melbourne, at Sidney:bouquets, tons and cart-loads of bouquets! Andthe past would be nothing compared with the future, withthe astounding tricks which he was inventing for hisLily. The mere sight of her raised his enthusiasm to boiling-point.And he was going to show them, in Calcuttaand elsewhere, if they knew how to make stars in NewZealand or if they were only fit for raising mutton.
Clifton was an artist, an “artiste,” a born artiste: startingas a mere clerk in an office, he had become an amateurcyclist and then a professional on the track. He marriedan Englishwoman at Wellington and, at Lily’s birth, decidedupon a career: the stage, with Lily for a star lateron! And he set to work, with vim and vigor, learned a2few tricks on his bike, taught his wife the business in lessthan no time; and Lily’s first memories as a four-year-oldwere:
“I was sitting on Ma’s shoulders, Ma on Pa’s and Paon the bike.”
And Lily zigzagged through New Zealand, from eastto west and north to south, and Australia after, whereshe received plenty of applause for her tricks, childish inthemselves, but well presented. Her triumphant pathwound among tinseled bottles containing paper flowers,with a faultless standstill for the climax, one hand onthe handle-bar, the other blowing kisses to the audience.This procured Pa an engagement for India. He ordereda beautiful colored poster, “The Clifton Family, TrickCyclists,” with a portrait in the corner of his own strongface and bristling mustache—“P. T. Clifton, Manager”—onemore rung in the ladder of life mounted,thanks to his Lily.
And Pa smiled to his daughter and, as she ran past him,lifted her o