"You will not marry that woman, Pat!"
I felt very uneasy. But I am a sport. I bore it all in a decent way. Yet I thanked God when the moment came for the parents to leave. Business had allowed dad to take only a very few days vacation, and they were returning the same night via Dresden and Cologne to England.
It was a happy necessity, for thus they escaped the criticisms of the next morning.
I will divulge you the mildest:
"The two Shakespearian birds of prey were served us yesterday as a dish which was neither fish nor flesh, concocted by our great actor Mr. Bischoff, and accompanied by a sauce anglaise prepared at a Worcestershire (or is it a Yorkshire?) manufacture by a certain Patrick Cooper, who has—unfortunately—nothing in common with Fennimore. But he has a wealthy father, a London shopkeeper in the City, and a mother who advertised yesterday her descent from a jeweller's family.
"There is not much to say about the insignificant Cooperian music, except perhaps that no other living composer would have conceived and written such a score. As for the libretto, it is the mistake of an intelligent man who has treated the subject not from the immortal poet's dramatic point of view, but shortsightedly from that of the actor. Mr. Bischoff only forgot that Shakespeare, too, was somebody, after all.
"Mr. Hetmann was a pale, voiceless Macbeth, and had it not been for the débutante of the evening, Miss Amizia Dobanelli, the performance would have been a total fiasco. She played and sang the Lady with charm as well as with energy. But we think that a part as La Belle Hélène would suit her particular talent better than the ambitious Lady."
Is it not a blessing that dad is an Englishman educated on such thoroughly English lines that he knows no foreign language? Blessed are the poor in education, for theirs is the kingdom of ignorance.