I overheard a small child explaining to her mother one night in Three
Colts Street, Limehouse, that she could not get into the house
because there was a "lady" on the doorstep, drunk,--"Signorina
Ballatino, the world-renowned--"

Here a voice from the gallery requested to know what had become of
"Old Joss," and was greeted by loud cries of "'Ear, 'ear."

The chairman, ignoring the interruption, continued:

"--the world-renowned performer on the zither--"

"On the whoter?" came in tones of plaintive inquiry from the back of
the hall.

"HON the zither," retorted the chairman, waxing mildly indignant; he
meant zithern, but he called it a zither. "A hinstrument well-known
to anybody as 'as 'ad any learning."

This sally was received with much favour, and a gentleman who claimed
to be acquainted with the family history of the interrupter begged
the chairman to excuse that ill-bred person on the ground that his
mother used to get drunk with the twopence a week and never sent him
to school.

Cheered by this breath of popularity, our little president
endeavoured to complete his introduction of the Signorina. He again
repeated that she was the world-renowned performer on the zithern;
and, undeterred by the audible remark of a lady in the pit to the
effect that she'd "never 'eard on 'er," added: