ambition, and belief. Each term she put upon him clung to him like a
garment, and fitted him without a crease. The last name that she
called him one felt to be, until one heard the next, the one name
that he ought to have been christened by.

For five and three-quarter minutes by the clock she spoke, and never
for one instant did she pause or falter; and in the whole of that
onslaught there was only one weak spot.

That was when she offered to make a better man than he was out of a
Guy Fawkes and a lump of coal. You felt that one lump of coal would
not have been sufficient.

At the end, she gathered herself together for one supreme effort, and
hurled at him an insult so bitter with scorn so sharp with insight
into his career and character, so heavy with prophetic curse, that
strong men drew and held their breath while it passed over them, and
women hid their faces and shivered.

Then she folded her arms, and stood silent; and the house, from floor
to ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more breath left
in its lungs.

In that one night she stepped from oblivion into success. She is now
a famous "artiste."

But she does not call herself Signora Ballatino, and she does not
play upon the zithern. Her name has a homelier sound, and her
speciality is the delineation of coster character.