In our humble judgment outspoken youth was quite correct. O ye Maries of England, you ought to be proud of her! Trumpets blared, lights went out, transformation to Fairyland, and there again was Mary! Once again she was going to let the painter go.
O ye Maries of England, true heroism is not the private perquisite of the Royal Horse Guards Blue. The precious seed is in you all, my dears. May you always do your respective duties as this particular Mary did when England expects it of you.
Right up she went through the middle register, tearing her poor throat to pieces at every note she took. Fairly launched the painter—“Nelson and his Gentlemen in Blue.” Don’t know whose the words are—Swinburne maybe, or Campbell Thomas, or Dibdin, or Gilbert W. S.; music may have been by Brahms or Schubert, or Strauss or Wagner or Debussy, but critics of Leading Morning Journal seem to think by none of these.
“’Core!” roared the cads in the stalls.
“’Core!” yelled the bloods in the pit.
“’Core!” cried the young ladies in the dress circle.
“’Core!” roared the members of nature’s nobility all over the house.
“Right on the spot all the time,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate. “Hollins, have that five years’ contract put in hand at once.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hollins, forgetting the degree to which it had pleased providence to call him in the lilt of that nautical tune.
“Good on yer, Mary,” proclaimed outspoken youth with almost pathetic enthusiasm from the front row of the gods.