"Who is that dark man?" Hazel inquired of Jack, for, as if his eyes were magnets, every girl in the group felt they were riveted upon her.
"I don't know," replied Jack, "but he seems to be very much interested in someone here. There, he is watching Cora. I wonder who the fellow is?"
The curtain rising interrupted the speculation. A man cushioned like a cozy corner laughed at himself while waiting for his audience to do so. Then he gave a yell and started to sing a ridiculous song about the milkmaid and the summer boarder. When he had finished one verse he took another "fit" of laughter, but somehow the audience did not see it his way, and when he tried it again, he broke off with an explanation. He felt sure that the people did not quite understand the joke, and he tried to tell them how very funny it was. To relieve the situation another person came on. One side of the figure was draped in the evening garb of a lady, while the other wore the full dress suit of a gentleman. The illusion was not at all bad, especially when the "person" waltzed with himself, with his arms around the other side of the evening dress the effect was really funny.
"That's Spencer," declared Jack to Hazel. "He did that at college.
Isn't it great?"
"Very funny," admitted Hazel, while the man made in halves bowed on one side first, then on the other, to his applause.
"Mabel is going to sing now," announced Miss Blake getting a firmer hold on her chair. "I just love to hear Mabel sing."
Jack said he did also, then outside the dropped curtain stepped
Mabel.
She was pretty, a little thing with brown eyes and brown hair. She wore the most babyish dress made in empire, and it was evident she knew something about making up for good effect on the stage.
Applause instantly greeted Mabel, and Jack was not the one who first tired of clapping his hands. This pleased Miss Jeannette immensely, and she did not fail to express her pleasure to those about her.
The dark man in the seat across the aisle glanced first at the stage and then at the seat where the elderly lady sat. Jack was watching him, and noted his peculiar glances. Presently Mabel started to sing. Her voice was sweet, and her stage manners attractive.