“What is your occupation?”
“Occupation? Well, I sing. I am a singer.”
“A singing-teacher? Is that what you are?”
“No, I don’t teach.”
“What do you do, then, for a living? Perhaps you are a sort of theatrical chap—a play-actor?”
Fiddle-John looked greatly mystified; he had never heard of such a thing as a theatre in all his life, and the word “actor” was not found in his vocabulary. Nevertheless, he thought it best to keep on good terms with the great official, and he therefore made one more effort to explain the nature of his occupation.
“If you will pardon my boldness,” he began, with a quaking voice, “I may say that I am a kind of poet—a minstrel——”
“Aha, that’s what you are!” roared the official, with a laugh, as if he had at last found the solution of the problem; “you are a negro-minstrel, an end-man, clog-dancer, and lively kind of a chap generally.”
Fiddle-John stood aghast; he was not a combative character, but the recent scene with the American gentleman on shipboard had aroused his suspicion, and the conclusion now suddenly flashed upon him that the official was making fun of him. The blood mounted to his head and his whole frame trembled.