ic. Yeovil had encountered wolves in North Africa deserts and in
Siberian forest and wold, he had seen them at twilight stealing like dark
shadows across the snow, and heard their long whimpering howl in the
darkness amid the pines; he could well understand how a magic lore had
grown up round them through the ages among the peoples of four
continents, how their name had passed into a hundred strange sayings and
inspired a hundred traditions. And now he saw them ride round the stage
on tricycles, with grotesque ruffles round their necks and clown caps on
their heads, their eyes blinking miserably in the blaze of the
footlights. In response to the applause of the house a stout,
atrociously smiling man in evening dress came forward and bowed; he had
had nothing to do either with the capture or the training of the animals,
having bought them ready for use from a continental emporium where wild
beasts were prepared for the music-hall market, but he continued bowing
and smiling till the curtain fell.

Two American musicians with comic tendencies (denoted by the elaborate
rags and tatters of their costumes) succeeded the wolves. Their musical
performance was not without merit, but their comic "business" seemed to
have been invented long ago by some man who had patented a monopoly of
all music-hall humour and forthwith retired from the trade. Some day,
Yeovil reflected, the rights of the monopoly might expire and new
"business" become available for the knockabout profession.

The audience brightened considerably when item number five of the
programme was signalled. The orchestra struck up a rollicking measure
and Tony Luton made his entrance amid a rousing storm of applause. He
was dressed as an errand-boy of some West End shop, with a livery and box-
tricycle, as spruce and decorative as the most ambitious errand-boy could
see himself in his most ambitious dreams. His song was a lively and very
audacious chronicle of life behind the scenes of a big retail
establishment, and sparkled with allusions which might fitly have been
described as suggestive--at any rate they appeared to suggest meanings to
the audience quite as clearly as Gorla Mustelford's dances were likely to
do, even with the aid, in her case, of long explanations on the
programmes. When the final verse seemed about to reach an unpardonable
climax a stage policeman opportunely appeared and moved the lively
songster on for obstructing the imaginary traffic