e. If his one friend, the
uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
which was applauded, and the remark "Ain't that Christian?" which was
just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude--none can say
exactly, for what reason--and must submit to be occasionally offered up
as propitiatory sacrifices.

This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom he
describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still to
be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that name
again from her lips, and a particular song!--he attempts it ludicrously,
yet touchingly withal.

Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?

The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the
house.

At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by
hearing "Dahlia" called from the pit.

Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her
eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily
being drawn. "My sister!" she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained
with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot, as
if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could not
move.

The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the
disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.

Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong out,
surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital in her eyes
alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist. The instant,
however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her, the evil
reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the evening
produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played, miauling, and
yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a noise. Algernon
feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into the lobby.

Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were