“Oh, pray don’t,” said the pretty pet; “how foolish you make me look, my lord!”
“Foolish! What a remarkable observation! Foolish, indeed! You ought to be pwoud. I know I should be if I had a tithe of your ability.”
“Oh, my lord, you are a flatterer, I do believe,” cried Lady Marvlynn, coming to the rescue; “but of course I know that anything my dear Arabella attempts to do is sure to please you.”
“Indeed you are mistaken, Lady Marvlynn,” said the young nobleman; “I am a most wigid cwitic, I assure you.”
The speaker conducted the fair Arabella to her seat, and Signor Marouski seated himself once more at the piano; he was about to favour the company with a long scena from a popular opera.
He began by playing a long monotonous prelude of a weird-like character; to judge from the sounds produced the inference would very naturally be that some one was in a state of deep dejection, or it might be despair or agony.
Presently he sang, in a sonorous voice, three prolonged notes. These were repeated several times, and were succeeded by a jerky, quick movement; this appeared to be a sort of recitative or prelude, for the notation was soon of a changed character—still, however, wailing and melancholy, or it might be said depressing.
That clever entertainer, Frederick Maccabe, says, when performing the rôle of a street minstrel—
“Why, lor bless you, there aint much occasion to hunderstand much about music wen you plays to a west-end audience; as long as you play somethink melancholy it’s sure to go down with the hupper classes.”
Perhaps Signor Marouski was of the same opinion. Anyway, he acted in accordance with Maccabe’s instructions.