rs, 'Yankee Doodle,'
'Hail, Columbia,' 'Patrick's Day,' 'The Watch on the Rhine,' 'The Star
Spangled Banner,' and 'Dixie.' Then the curtain will go up on 'Box and
Cox.' You'll play _Box_, Diggins will do _Cox_, and Cromwell will play
_Mrs. Bouncer_."

"Hold on, sir," said Smith. "Cromwell can't do _Mrs. Bouncer_--he has a
moustache, you know."

Handy smiled. "Let him shave it off. Don't you remember that in Augustin
Daly's theatre, in the very heyday of its glory, Mr. Daly would not
allow any actor to wear hair on his face? Cromwell is too good an actor
to hesitate to make so slight a sacrifice in the interest of art. Tell
him I said so, Smith."

Smith smiled, and in a stage whisper said: "He heard all you said. Yes,
Mr. Cromwell will shave."

"Then will follow Miss De Vere in one of her coon songs, after the style
of Fay Templeton, May Irwin or----What's that, boy?" addressing a lad
who approached the prompt table.

"There's a man back at the stage door, sir," replied the boy, "with a
fiddle case under his arm, who says you have a date with him."

"Oh, yes! That's all right, my boy. Where is he?" and Handy walked back
with the boy. "Is this Signor Collenso, about whom I have heard so many
pleasant things?"

"Say, Mr. Handy, me name is plain Bill Cullen for every-day work, but
for professional purposes in the music line I discovered that it pays to
put on a bit of style, and that's how I came to ring in the Collenso."

"Quite right, my dear fellow! All artists of more or less great ability,
especially in the musical line, make such alterations. For instance,
Lizzie Norton is twisted into Mme. Nordica; Pat Foley changed into
Signor Foli; and when Ellen Mitchell became great, she dropped the old
name and Italianized it into Melba. Oh, that's all right."

"Yes, sir; I know all that, and there are others. But when you and I are
talking, let us give the Italian cognomen a rest. Now, what do you want
me to do?"

"What can you do?"

"Oh, something of everything--classic and otherwise."

"What can you do in the classics, for example?"

"Selections from Mendelssohn, Paganini, Schumann, Rubinstein----"

"Say, my friend," asked Handy, in some surprise, "do you play such
music?"

"Oh, yes, whenever I get a chance in public; but when alone they are my
favorites. But, then, for encores I give them 'Killarney,' 'Molly Bawn,'
'The Swanee River,' 'Mr. Dooley,' 'Harrigan'--anything that's popular
and what they call up