onally, "they tell me they're easier than any other animal
in the world to train, except a pig. Fact. Circus man told me."

He had a genial face, creased into jolly patterns, and my heart
warmed to him, and to Michael Daragh and the pretty girls and the fat
old lady in front of me. Nice people, kind people. It seemed certain
that they must want real things, clean things.

I took out a pencil to make notes for corrections, but the annunciator
said D, and a lady who would have done nicely as Venus came out
attired as Cupid and the house rocked with welcome. I was cold with
conjecture. _What_ had happened back there? Had my poor starveling
fainted again? Had BROTHER'S brother died of fright? I sat shivering
through the sprightly number until C, said the electric lights, and
the orchestra began softly to play--

"In days of old,
When knights were bold--"

The curtain rose on the bleak telegraph station, on my thin spinster
in her rocking chair. It was a lean vision for eyes lately ravished
by the Venus lady's charms; programs rattled; the Tramp Juggler was
to follow. I could see her chest rising and falling jerkily with her
frightened breath and her hands shook so that she could hardly hold
her sewing. From far aloft came that loud guffaw that speaks the
vacant mind and one of the pretty girls next me giggled in echo. Then
something seemed to go through my waif; the Burne-Jones jaw was taut;
she got hold of herself; then, slowly, steadily, surely, little by
little, she got hold of the house. The man on the end who had
slouched comfortably down in his seat, sat sharply upright and the
girls stopped whispering. BROTHER came on, and his brother as the
MAN. The tempo was perfect, the acceleration blood-quickening. Laughs
came at unexpected places, friendly and cordial. The girl was like a
melody in low tones; she built up her climax cunningly, warming,
coloring, kindling.

"Good gad!" ejaculated the spatted gentleman in the aisle seat, "you
know, that girl can act!" The old lady in front lifted a frank
handkerchief; the giggling girls were raptly watching. Now the GIRL'S
big moment came. Her voice, faded and gentle before, was harsh and
strident. "_I don't care! I don't care! You hush! You keep
still!_"

When she gave him his broth she had seemed the gentlest of living