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122 something. Her husband 's in it, and all the others, they say, are English lords. That 's part of the syndicate with her now, in the box."

"What part of the syndicate?" said Tod. "The head, or the feet, or the middle?"

"Don't get gay, Tod," said his sister, severely; "I don't like small boys when they 're too funny. Down there in the audience, near the middle of the parquet, is the woman whose husband is something or other in Central America. He 's enormously rich, and she comes up here once a year and buys clothes. They say she used to be on the stage, and she looks just like it; she has such a lot of paint round her eyes and such vaudeville hair. But you ought to see her children! They 're quite black, just like little negroes. Major Conway, who lived down there a good deal, says that Central American children are all dark when they 're young, and then it wears off as they grow older."

"Do they use sapolio?" inquired Tod.

Pearl treated this inquiry with fitting scorn, and continued:

"There 's Bertha Lajaune, over there by the pillar. Do you think she 's so beautiful? I must say I don't. I heard the other day that she was a Jewess, and that her mother had one of those pawnbroking places south of Market