"Well—I—I—I have had higher thoughts. Here in Houston Street life is strange, and I must take what I find. Times are a little hard, a little hard, and the parents of my pupils are pushed for money. They don't pay, otherwise, perhaps I—" and Von Barwig sighed.
"You ain't suited, that's what's the matter!"
"Oh, yes; oh, yes! I—" broke in Von Barwig, afraid that Costello might dispense with his services altogether. "I acknowledge the curios came a little on my nerves at first. It was all so strange: the people staring, the midgets chattering, the stout lady fanning, fanning, always fanning, the lecturing of the lecturer; and you at the door always calling 'Insides, insides!'"
Costello laughed, "You mean 'Insi-i-ide.'"
"Yes, insides," went on Von Barwig, unconsciously making the same mistake. Then he added, trying to convince himself, "Better times will come soon and then, perhaps, we shall part, but for the present I remain, eh, yes?"
Costello nodded. "As long as you like, profess'; as long as you like!" and he held out his hand for Von Barwig to shake. As Von Barwig did so, he said: "I shall always remember it was your money that helped me to bridge over—my—my difficulties——"
"That's all right, that's all right!" asserted Costello. "You're worth the money or you wouldn't get it. But don't forget, when the lecturer says, 'Bosco, Bosco, the armless wonder!' play up lively, see? and when he says, 'Bites their heads off and eats their bodies; eats 'em alive, eats 'em alive!' give it to her thumpin'!"
Here Von Barwig drew a deep breath. He was tired, tired unto his very soul of the whole business; but he had to go on.
"Yes," he said, with a pathetic smile, "she shall eat 'em alive yet livelier!"
This appeared to satisfy Costello, and shaking hands with Von Barwig once more, he went out and left him standing in the middle of the room. Von Barwig's eye fell on a daguerreotype of Mendelssohn, and it called him back to Leipsic. "Eat 'em alive, eat 'em alive, eat 'em alive!" rang in his ears. "Good God, to what have I fallen, to what have I fallen?" he cried to himself; then he stopped. "I must have more courage. I am a coward, I am always railing at fate! Who can tell what the future shall have in store for me?" Then he thought of the songs he had found in his old trunk with his symphony. He hastily opened the trunk, took them out and hurried uptown for the purpose of selling them, but the symphony he did not take—he had not the courage to sell that.