And say, she did it! Anyways, them was what she aimed at. For awhile the crowd held its breath, tryin' to believe it was only a freight engine whistlin' for brakes, or somethin' like that. Then they began to grin. Next some one touched off a giggle, and after that they roared until they were wipin' away the tears.
Leonidas don't look quite so glum when he comes out to present the reformed banjoist as Sir Henry Irving. He'd got his cue, all right, and he hands out a game of talk about delayed genius comin' to the front that tickled the folks clear through. The guy never seemed to drop that he was bein' handed the lemon, and he done his worst.
I thought they'd used up all the laughs they had in 'em, but Montana Kate as Ophelia set 'em wild again. Maybe you've seen amateurs that was funny, but you never see anything to beat that combination. Amateurs are afraid to let themselves loose, but not that bunch. They were so sure of bein' the best that ever happened in their particular lines that they didn't even know the crowd was givin' 'em the ha-ha until they'd got through.
Anyway, as a rib tickler that show was all to the good. The folks nearly mobbed Pinckney, tellin' him what a case he was to think up such an exhibition, and he laid it all to Sadie and me.
Only the duchess didn't exactly seem to connect with the joke. She sat stolidly through the whole performance in a kind of a daze, and then afterwards she says: "It wasn't what I'd call really clever, you know; but, my word! the poor things tried hard enough."
Just before I starts for home I hunts up Leonidas. He was givin' orders to his boss canvasman when I found him, and feelin' the pulse of his one-lunger, that Mrs. Brassett's chauffeur had tinkered up.
"Well, Leonidas," says I, "are you goin' to put the Shakespeare-Sagawa combination on the ten-twenty-thirt circuit?"
"Not if I can prove an alibi," says he. "I've just paid a week's advance salary to that crowd of Melbas and Booths, and told 'em to go sign contracts with Frohman and Hammerstein. I may be running a medicine show, but I've got some professional pride left. Now I'm going back to New York and engage an educated pig and a troupe of trained dogs to fill out the season."
The last I saw of Montana Kate she was pacin' up and down the station platform, readin' a copy of "Romeo and Juliet." Ain't they the pippins, though?