“For any one with talent like yours it isn’t so very hard,” said Polly persuasively. “Ruth and I will help you with the book, and then you must have some good soprano solos—for me—and some manly contralto solos, probably for Clarissa, if we can only get her to take them; and then there must be a soubrette song or two—we’ll find the soubrette, and there must be a man’s funny part, like Charles River, the ‘winter man’ in ‘A Copper Complication,’” and Polly spun round the room, singing:
“Now since men are always busy in this lovely summer time,
I get my little innings when I can,
As I wanted to offset a bit the summer girl’s éclat,
I call myself a winter man.
I drive out, I dine out at functions divine,
At parties I dance with the belle of the ball.
It is in the winter I have my good time.”
“Oh, no indeed!” interrupted Ruth. “Julia’s opera will have no frivolous Charles River. Her hero, I’m sure, will be a most serious person with high purpose.”
“And a low voice, that is, low for an alto,” cried the irrepressible Polly.