celebrated entrepreneur when Matty Cann drew attention to the
discrepancy. "It's always done in the theatrical business. Bless you, you
don't think we pay our Sarah Bernhardts, and our Cinquevallis, and our
Paderewskis and our Peggy Prydes those enormous salaries that get into
the papers. No; no, we couldn't do it, but we are content to let it be
thought we do. It impresses our public, Bonypart--it impresses our
public, my boy."

Madame Marve produced bread, butter, pannikins, and the familiar
necessities, brought forward the usual boiled leg of mutton on a lordly
dish, large, fat and steaming like a laundry.

"Encore, encore!" cried the Professor.

"Hear, hear!" applauded Nickie, clapping vigorously. Matty Cann even
ventured an expression of appreciation.

Madame Marve placed the mutton for the carver, and bowed low to the right
and left, picked up an imaginary bouquet, and threw three kisses to
hypothetical "gods."

"Come, come, Bony," she said, patting the Living Skeleton on the back,
"buck up, man. If my old man couldn't think of me for ten minutes without
snivelling, I'd have a divorce."

Matty Cann smiled wanly. He had no great cause to "buck up," his share of
the boiled leg would be very small indeed and entirely knuckle, the
Professor holding that the knuckle end was not fat-producing.

"It's Jane's birthday this day week, an' little Mat'll be two year old