I began to whistle the air softly. Presently two handsome girls, with jimp raiment and fearless demeanour, came in and took possession of an adjacent table.
“What'll it be, Nell?”
“I'll take a dozen panned. I'm hungry enough to eat all the oysters that ever came out of the sea. A rehearsal like that gives one an appetite.”
“A dozen panned, and lobster salad for me, and two bottles of beer,” was the order of the first speaker to the waiter.
I recognized the faces as pertaining to the chorus of the opera company at the —— Theatre. I stopped whistling while I watched them.
Suddenly, like a delayed and multiplied echo of my own whistling, came in a soft hum from one of the girls the notes of the doctor's tragically associated strain of music.
The doctor and I exchanged glances. The girl stopped humming.
“I think that's the prettiest thing in the piece, Maude,” said she.
Undoubtedly it was the comic opera to be produced at the —— Theatre to which she alluded as “the piece.”
“Amazing,” I said to the doctor. “Millocker composed the piece she's talking about. Millocker never killed a wife in Paris. Nor would he steal bodily from another. Perhaps the thing has been interpolated by the local producer. It doesn't sound quite like Millocker, anyhow. I must see about this.”