my hand upon my
heart and reflect that never yet have I yielded to the temptation.
Always have I laid them back within their drawer, saying to myself, with
stern reproof:

"No, no, Paul. Stand or fall by your own merits. Never plagiarise--in
any case, not from this 'little lot.'"

CHAPTER IV.

LEADS TO A MEETING.

"Don't be nervous," said the O'Kelly, "and don't try to do too much. You
have a very fair voice, but it's not powerful. Keep cool and open your
mouth."

It was eleven o'clock in the morning. We were standing at the entrance
of the narrow court leading to the stage door. For a fortnight past the
O'Kelly had been coaching me. It had been nervous work for both of us,
but especially for the O'Kelly. Mrs. O'Kelly, a thin, acid-looking lady,
of whom I once or twice had caught a glimpse while promenading Belsize
Square awaiting the O'Kelly's signal, was a serious-minded lady, with a
conscientious objection to all music not of a sacred character. With the
hope of winning the O'Kelly from one at least of his sinful tendencies,
the piano had been got rid of, and its place in the drawing-room filled
by an American organ of exceptionally lugubrious tone. With this we
had had to make shift, and though the O'Kelly--a veritable musical
genius--had succeeded in evolving from it an accompaniment to "Sally in
Our Alley" less misleading and confusing than might otherwise have been
the case, the result had not been to lighten our labours. My rendering
of the famous ballad had, in consequence, acquired a dolefulness not
intended by the composer. Sung as I sang it, the theme became, to employ
a definition since grown hackneyed as applied to Art, a problem ballad.
Involuntarily one wondered whether the marriage would turn out as
satisfactorily as the young man appeared to anticipate. Was there not,
when one came to think of it, a melancholy, a pessimism ingrained within
the temperament of the complainful hero that would ill assort with
those instincts toward frivolity the careful observer could not avoid
discerning in the charming yet nevertheless somewhat shallow character
of Sally.

"Lighter, lighter. Not so soulful," would demand the O'Kelly, as the
solemn notes rolled jerkily from the groaning instrument beneath his
hands.

Once we were nearly caught, Mrs. O'Kelly returning from a district
visitors' committee meeting earlier than was expected. Hastily I was
hidden in a small conservatory adjutting from the first fl