"And you mixed up in such a----?"

"Well, no; not exactly. We had a box--as I suppose you would call it;
three of them. Of course that _did_ cost a little something. And then Mr.
Whyland bought a few cigars----"

"Mr. Whyland----?"

"Yes, he was with us; he thought there ought to be at least one gentleman
along. He couldn't smoke the cigars, but one of the girls happened to
have some cigarettes----"

"Cigarettes?"

"Yes, and we found _their_ smoke much more endurable. That was the worst
about the place--the smoke; unless it was the performance----"

"Oh!" said Abner, with a groan of disgust.

"Well, it wasn't as bad as _that!_" returned Clytie. "It was only dull
and stale and stupid; the same old sort of knockabouts and serio-comics
you can see everywhere down town, only not a quarter so good--just cheap
imitations. And all those poor fellows sat moping over their beer-mugs
waiting, waiting, waiting for something new and entertaining to happen. I
never felt so sorry for anybody in my life. We girls about made up our
minds that we would get together a little fund and see if we couldn't do
some missionary work in that neighbourhood--hire some real good
artists"--Abner winced at this hideous perversion of the word--"hire some
real good artists to go over there and let those poor creatures see what
a first-class show was like; and Mr. Whyland promised to contribute----"