“Nothing much. I was thinking ’twas better Abbie wa’n’t along on this cruise. She’d probably want to put an ‘im’ in front of that ‘proper.’ I envy those women, Jim; they didn’t have to stop to hunt up collar buttons, did they.”
He was silent during the first act of the opera. When the curtain fell his companion asked how he liked it.
“Good singin’,” he replied; “best I ever heard. Do you understand what they say?”
“No. But I’m familiar with the story of Aïda, of course. It’s a favorite of mine. And the words don’t really matter.”
“I suppose not. It’s the way they say it. I had an Irishman workin’ round my barn once, and Tim Bailey drove down from Bayport to see me. I was out and Tim and the Irishman run afoul of each other. Tim stuttered so that he made a noise when he talked like one of these gasoline bicycles goin’ by. He watched Mike sweepin’ out the horse stall and he says, ‘You’re a pup—pup ... I say you’re a pup—.’ He didn’t get any further ’cause Mike went for him with the broom. Turned out later that he was tryin’ to compliment that Irishman by sayin’ he was a particular sort of feller. These folks on the stage might be sayin’ most anythin’, and I wouldn’t know it. But I sha’n’t knock ’em down, for I like the way it’s said. When the Almighty give us music he more than made up for makin’ us subject to toothache, didn’t he.”
Pearson bought a copy of the libretto, and the captain followed the performance of the next two acts with interest.
“Say, Jim,” he whispered, with a broad grin, “it’s a good thing this opera idea ain’t carried into real life. If you had to sing every word you said ’twould be sort of distressin’, ’specially if you was in a hurry. A fust-rate solo when you was orderin’ the crew to shorten sail would be a high old brimstone anthem, I’ll bet you. And think of the dinner table at our boardin’ house! Mrs. Van and C. Dickens both goin’ at once, and Marm Hepton serenadin’ the waiter girl! Ho! ho! A cat fight wouldn’t be a circumstance.”
Between the third and the fourth acts the pair went out into the foyer, where, ascending to the next floor, they made the round of the long curve behind the boxes, Pearson pointing out to his friend the names of the box lessees on the brass plates.
“There!” he observed, as, the half circle completed, they turned and strolled back again, “isn’t that an imposing list, Captain? Don’t you feel as if you were close to the real thing?”
“Godfreys mighty!” was the solemn reply; “I was just thinkin’ I felt as if I’d been readin’ one of those muck-rakin’ yarns in the magazines!”