heard anything, mind you, about any of these cases." Mr. Martin glowered
virtuously. "I never read the papers, sir, and have no prejudices
whatsoever.

"But I've just been feelin' lately that there are wider opportunities in
the west for a man of my experience and record than are left around here."



TO BERT WILLIAMS


"Well," said Mr. Bert Williams, in his best "Under the Bamboo Tree"
dialect, "If you like mah singin' and actin' so much, how come, you bein'
a writer, you don't write somethin' about youah convictions on this
subjeck? Oh! It's not youah depahtment! Hm! Tha's jes' mah luck. I was
always the mos' unluckiest puhson who ever trifled with misfohtune. Not
his depahtment! Tha'--tha's jes' it. I never seems to fall jes' exactly in
the ri-right depahtment.

"May I ask, without meanin' to be puhsonal, jes' what is your depahtment?
Murder! Oh, you is the one who writes about murders and murderuhs foh the
paper! Nothin' else? Is tha' so? Jes' murders and murderuhs and--and
things like tha'? Well, tha' jes' shows how deceivin' looks is, fo' when
you came in heah I says to mahself, I says, 'this gen'le-man is a critic
of the drama.' And when I sees you have on a pair o' gloves I added
quickly to mahself, 'Yes, suh, chances are he is not only a critic of the
drama, but likewise even possuhbly a musical critic.' Yes, suh, all mah
life I have had the desire to be interviewed by a musical critic, but no
matter how hard I sing or how frequently, no musical critic has yet taken