and such mercy is merciless. The conductor stands _in loco parentis_.
He is the _advocatus angeli_. He does for the audience what it would
not do for itself. He protects it against its own fatal good-nature. He
insists that it shall receive what it has paid for, and he will deal with
disturbers as they deserve. The audience, conscious of its own good-humored
impotence, recognizes at once its protector, and gladly applauds him for
doing for it what it has not the nerve to do for itself. No audience whose
rights were defended as Thomas defended those of his Washington audience
ever resented the defence.

"No," responded Cleopatra, briskly; "the same imbecility prevents."

"Very well; then such an audience plainly needs a strong and resolute
leadership; and that is precisely what Thomas supplied. A crowd is always
grateful to the man who will do what everybody in the crowd feels ought to
be done, but what no individual is quite ready to undertake."

When Cleopatra said that an audience is quite competent to take care of
itself, her remark was natural, for she instinctively conceived the
audience as herself extended into a thousand persons. Such an audience
would certainly be capable of dispensing with any mentor or guide. But when
the Easy Chair asked her if she was annoyed by the chattering interruption
which Thomas rebuked, she replied that of course she was annoyed. Yet
when she was further asked if she cried "Hush!" or resorted to any means
whatever to quell the disturbance, the royal lady could not help smiling as
she answered, "I did not," and the Easy Chair retorted, "Yet an audience is
capable of protecting itself!"

Meanwhile, whatever the conductor or the audience may or may not do,
nothing is more vulgar than audible conversation, or any other kind of