Rufus apologized and said he'd do the trick over again if some one would lend him a hat, but nothing doing. We all preferred our eggs boiled.
Then we had Claribel Montrose in select recitations. She was all the money.
Claribel grabbed "The Wreck of the Hesperus" between her pearly teeth and shook it to death. Then she got a half-Nelson on Poe's "Raven" and put it out of business.
Next she tried an imitation of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. If Juliet talked like that dame did no wonder she took poison.
Then Claribel let down her back hair and started in to give us a mad scene—and it was. Everybody in the room got mad.
When peace was finally restored Mrs. Frothingham informed us that the rest of the "paid" talent had disappointed her and she'd have to depend on the volunteers. Then she whispered to Miss Gladiola Hungerschnitz, whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano and began to knock its teeth out.
The way Gladiola went after one of Beethoven's sonatas and slapped its ears was pitiful.
Gladiola learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music. She can take a Hungarian rhapsody and turn it into a goulash in about 32 bars.