't killed outright evidently, but only crippled--and
several tons of dynamite explode in a basement.

As the crashing reverberations die away the lady arises, wan but game,
and bows low in response to the applause and backs away, leaving the
wreck of the piano jammed back on its haunches and trembling like a leaf
in every limb.

All to yourself, off in your little corner, you are thinking that surely
this has been suffering and disaster enough for one evening and
everybody will be willing to go away and seek a place of quiet. But no.
In its demand for fresh horrors this crowd is as insatiate as the
ancient Romans used to be when Nero was giving one of those benefits at
the Colosseum for the fire sufferers of his home city. There now
advances to the platform a somber person of a bass aspect, he having a
double-yolk face and a three-ply chin and a chest like two or three
chests.

[Illustration: "RO-HOCKED IN THE CRA-HADLE OF THE DA-HEEP I LA-HAY ME
DOWN IN PE-HEACE TO SA-LEEP!"]

You know in advance what the big-mouthed black bass is going to
sing--there is only one regular song for a bass singer to sing. From
time to time insidious efforts have been made to work in songs for
basses dealing with the love affairs of Bedouins and the joys of life
down in a coal mine; but after all, to a bass singer who really values
his gift of song and wishes to make the most of it, there is but one
suitable selection, beginning as follows:

_Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep,
I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep!
Collum and pa-heaceful be my sa-leep
Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep!_

[Illustration: "SHEM UNDOUBTEDLY SANG IT WHEN THE ANIMALS WERE HUNGRY"]

That is the orthodox offering for a bass. The basses of the world have
always used it, I believe, and generally to advantage. From what I have
been able to ascertain I judge that it was first written for use on the
Ark. Shem sang it probably. If there is anything in this doctrine of
heredity Ham specialized in banjo solos and soft-shoe dancing, and
Japhet, I take it, was the tenor--he certainly had a tenor-sounding kind
of a name. So it must have been Shem, and undoubtedly he sang it when
the animals were hungry, so as to drown out the sounds of their
roaring.

So this, his descendant--this chip off the old cheese, as it
were--stands up on the platform facing you, with his chest well extended
to show his red suspender straps peeping coyly out from