seem so sorry? Why don't he marry the young lady? Let's see, I don't
remember his name."

"Beastly voice," declared Landry Court. "He almost broke there once.
Too bad. He's not what he used to be. It seems he's terribly
dissipated--drinks. Yes, sir, like a fish. He had delirium tremens
once behind the scenes in Philadelphia, and stabbed a scene shifter
with his stage dagger. A bad lot, to say the least."

"Now, Landry," protested Mrs. Cressler, "you're making it up as you
go along." And in the laugh that followed Landry himself joined.

"After all," said Corthell, "this music seems to be just the right
medium between the naive melody of the Italian school and the
elaborate complexity of Wagner. I can't help but be carried away
with it at times--in spite of my better judgment."

Jadwin, who had been smoking a cigar in the vestibule during the
entr'acte, rubbed his chin reflectively.

"Well," he said, "it's all very fine. I've no doubt of that, but I
give you my word I would rather hear my old governor take his guitar
and sing 'Father, oh father, come home with me now,' than all the
fiddle-faddle, tweedle-deedle opera business in the whole world."

But the orchestra was returning, the musicians crawling out one by
one from a little door beneath the stage hardly bigger than the
entrance of a rabbit hutch. They settled themselves in front of
their racks, adjusting their coat-tails, fingering their sheet
music. Soon they began to tune up, and a vague bourdon of many