There lies before me now a square of rough paper (designedly rough), with jagged edges (designedly jagged), tinted in water colours an elegant cloudy blue, with a butterfly, or some such insect, painted in one corner, and a slit diagonally opposite through which we stuck a single rosebud, as I remember. Slanting across the sheet in loose gilt lettering I read "Programme," and a date beneath. This confection represented days of effort and ingenuity on the part of those young ladies among my contemporaries who painted china, or were otherwise "artistic." Some of them took the "Art Amateur," at a ruinous expenditure; that publication has long since gone the way of all flesh and most print, in company, it would appear, with the amateurs for whom it was destined. Nobody is either "artistic" or amateurish any more. We did the jagging with a meat-saw, I believe—what a spectacle for our accomplished posterity!

If I reverse the sheet, I find upon the other side, in a correct angular hand (it may well be my own, for angularity was much the fashion in those days; and the inartistic ones let what aid they could to the task of programme-making), I find, I say, the

CAST OF CHARACTERS
WILLIAM TELL,
An Opera in Two Acts.
William Tell Mr. Archer Baldwin Lewis
Arnold von Winkelreid Mr. James Hathaway
Walter Furst Mr. Julian Todd
Melcthal Mr. Appleton Wingate
Gessler Mr. James Smith
Rudolph Mr. John Porter
Ruodi Mr. Joseph Randall McHenry
Leuthold Mr. Henry Barnes Smith
Matilda Mr. Gwynne Peters
Mrs. Tell Mr. Oliver Hunt
Mrs. Gessler Mr. Theodore E. Johns
Jemmy, Tell's son Mr. Junius Brutus Breckinridge Taylor
Chorus of Peasants, Knights, Pages,
Ladies, Hunters, Soldiers, etc. Mr. Robert Carson
Scene: The Schactenthal Waterfall.

The uninformed might very well inquire, as did Doctor Vardaman, what under Heaven Arnold von Winkelreid was doing in this galère? He appeared among the other historical personages with a baseball-catcher's padded guard tied about his chest, and stuck full of enormous arrows; at one time or another every young man in the cast, including Jimmie Hathaway himself, was overheard laboriously explaining to Muriel that it was "all just nonsense, you know; of course Winkelreid didn't have anything to do with Tell—but there was an Arnold in the cast of the real opera—and then there was that funny old piece about Arnold von Winkelreid in McGuffey's Reader, you know: 'Make way for liberty, he cried, make way for liberty, and died!' and he somehow seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of the foolishness. They had thought of having Casabianca, too, but gave it up," and so on and so on.

"Don't pay any attention to their excuses, Miss Baxter," said the doctor fiercely, yet shaking with laughter. "It's all miserable horse-play—vandalism—desecration. 'Guillaume Tell' is a beautiful opera, the creation of a great musical genius. I've seen Sonntag and Lablache in it; it ought to be sacred from these barbarians—you hear me, boys, barbarians!" He menaced them with a closed fist; and they went on shamelessly:

Gessler (in a loud voice)—Who are these fellows?

Rudolph—My lord, these are Swiss.

Gessler (louder, pointing to Tell)—Who's that fellow with the freckles?

Rudolph—My lord, that is a dotted Swiss.

Gessler (louder still)—Take away that dashed Swiss!

Rudolph—My lord, I said dotted.

Gessler (very loud)—Well, I said dashed——

It took little enough to make us laugh, for we thought all that very funny indeed. And an interesting point might be made of the fact that "William Tell," whether the men had greater abilities, or easier parts, or from whatever reason, was, as a whole, far and away superior to the play in which the girls appeared. Doctor Vardaman, for all his old-time gallantry, betrayed his preference more than once; but it sometimes seemed to me as if the old gentleman took a malign satisfaction in viewing our performances, theatrical and otherwise, as one who should stand by and observe the antics of so many apes with an amused detachment.

"Of course, of course, I enjoy the comedy. Don't you want me to enjoy the comedy?" he said when I taxed him, and eyed me sidelong with his discomfiting grin. The doctor was a queer old man; not the least evidence of his queerness was the interest he displayed in our affairs. He watched us drill for "William Tell" and "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara," day by day, appearing to find therein unfailing entertainment. To be sure he had little else to do; he had long retired from practice, and, as he said of himself, was the weak-minded victim of his own whims. With all his oddities, we were fond of him; and his advice and suggestions were a real help to such of us as took ourselves and our parts seriously. The stage was one of his many hobbies; he had collected a huge library of books relating to it; had seen all of the celebrated actors of his day and known not a few of them; and could recall Laura Keane in the very rôle which Muriel was now essaying.

"Do you remember what she wore, Doctor?" Mazie asked him, characteristically enough, by the way.