ded for me.

"Fire away," said Mr. Hodgson.

"What is it?" asked of me wearily the melancholy gentleman at the piano.

"'Sally in Our Alley,'" I replied.

"What are you?" interrupted Mr. Hodgson. He had never once looked at me,
and did not now.

"A tenor," I replied. "Not a full tenor," I added, remembering the
O'Kelly's instructions.

"Utterly impossible to fill a tenor," remarked the restless-eyed
gentleman, looking at me and speaking to the worried-looking gentleman.
"Ever tried?"

Everybody laughed, with the exception of the melancholy gentleman at the
piano, Mr. Hodgson throwing in his contribution without raising his eyes
from his letters. Throughout the proceedings the restless-eyed gentleman
continued to make humorous observations of this nature, at which
everybody laughed, excepting always the melancholy pianist--a short,
sharp, mechanical laugh, devoid of the least suggestion of amusement.
The restless-eyed gentleman, it appeared, was the leading low comedian
of the theatre.

"Go on," said the melancholy gentleman, and commenced the accompaniment.

"Tell me when he's going to begin," remarked Mr. Hodgson at the
conclusion of the first verse.

"He has a fair voice," said my accompanist. "He's evidently nervous."

"There is a prejudice throughout theatrical audiences," observed Mr.
Hodgson, "in favour of a voice they can hear. That is all I am trying to
impress upon him."

The second verse, so I imagined, I sang in the voice of a trumpet. The
burly gentleman--the translator of the French libretto, as he turned
out to be; the author of the English version, as he preferred to
be called--acknowledged to having distinctly detected a sound. The
restless-eyed comedian suggested an announcement from the stage
requesting strict silence during my part of the performance.

The sickness of fear was stealing over me. My voice, so it seemed to me,
disappointed at the effect it had produced, had retired, sulky, into my
boots, whence it refused to emerge.

"Your voice is all right--very good," whispered the musical conductor.
"They want to hear the best you can do, that's all."

At this my voice ran up my legs and out of my mouth. "Thirty shillings
a week, half salary for rehearsals. If that's all right, Mr. Catchpole
will give you your agreement. If not, very much obliged. Good morning,"
said Mr. Hodgson, still absorbed in his correspondence.

With the pale-faced young man I retired to a desk in the corner