sings like a canary. If
you don't look at 'em, they're great."

They _were_ superb. From the throats of that ill-favored chorus there
came divine harmony, smooth, evenly-balanced, exhilarating, almost
flawless, and as the great musical poem of passion unfolded and the
magnificent aria of Don Jose was finished in the second act, the
little group of listeners down in front burst into involuntary
applause, to which there was but one dissenting voice. This voice,
suddenly evolving out of the darkness at Bobby's side, ejaculated with
supreme disgust:

"Well, what do you think of that! Why, that fat little fishworm of a
Dago is actually gone bug-house over Miss McGinnis," a fact which had
been obvious to all of them the minute small Ricardo began to sing his
wonderful love song to large Caravaggio.

The rest of them had found only amusement in the fact, but to Biff
Bates there was nothing funny about this. He sat in speechless
disapproval throughout the balance of that much-interrupted
performance, wherein Professor Fruehlingsvogel, now and then, stopped
his music with a crash to shriek an excited direction that it was all
wrong, that it was execrable, that it was a misdemeanor, a crime, a
murder to sing it in that way! The passage must be all sung over; or,
at other times, the gaunt stage director, whose name was Monsieur
Noire, would rush with a hoarse howl down to Herr Professor, order him
to stop the music, and, turning, berate some unfortunate performer who
had defied the conventions of grand opera by acting quite naturally.
On the whole, however, it was a very creditable performance, and
Bobby's advisers gave the project their unqualified approval.

"It is really a commendable thing," Aunt Constance complacently
announced, "to encourage music of this order, and to furnish such a
degree of cultivation for the masses."

It was a worthy project indeed. As for the company itself there could
be no question that it was a good one. No one expected acting in grand
opera, no one expected that the performers would be physically
adaptable to their parts. The voice! The voice was all. Even Agnes
admitted that it was a splendid thing to be a patron of the fine arts;
but Bobby, in his profound new wisdom and his thorough conversion to
strictly commercial standards, said with vast iconoclasm:

"You are overlooking the main point. I am not so anxious to become a
patron of the fine arts as I am to make money," with which terribl