He tapped the long-haired young man on the shoulder.
“Love lyrics,” he said, briefly.
The thin young man with a sad countenance he touched on the arm and said, “Comic songs,” and pointing to the youth who wore the baggiest trousers, he said, “Dialogue.” He did not have to tell me that the wheezy little German contained the music of our play. I knew it by the way he wheezed.
Perkins swept me away from my desk, and deposited one young man there, and another at his desk. The others he gave each a window-sill, and to each of the four he handed a pencil and writing-pad.
“Write!” he said, and they wrote.
As fast as the poets finished a song, they handed it to the composer, who made suitable music for it. It was good music—it all reminded you of something else. If it wasn't real music, it was at least founded on fact.
The play did not have much plot, but it had plenty of places for the chorus to come in in tights or short skirts—and that is nine-tenths of any comic opera. I knew it was the real thing as soon as I read it. The dialogue was full of choice bits like,—
“So you think you can sing?”
“Well, I used to sing in good old boyhood's hour.”
“Then why don't you sing it?”