"What's the matter with you, anyway?"
"We-e-e-e-e-e! My dear, you are just splendid as Hamlet. You should have been an actor."
"Will ye ever shut up? Who ever told ye to yell like that? Don't ye know anything at all scarcely? Think Hamlet's a lunatic asylum? Got some kind of a notion that the queen's a fog-horn? Where'd ye get your idea of this thing, anyway?"
"I did just as you told me, dear. You said I was to scream when you asked me what the matter was. Didn't I do it right?"
"Oh, that was right! You struck the keynote of high art both times! With that yell and your knowledge of the text all you want now is a fire and a free list to be a theater with a restaurant attachment! Such talent as that can't be wasted on any cheap Shakespeare plays while I've got the money and influence to get you a job in the legitimate circus!" And Mr. Spoopendyke bolted from the house, thoroughly disgusted with private theatricals.
By permission of The Brooklyn Eagle.
THE V-A-S-E
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
Far from the crowd they stood apart,
The maidens four and the Work of Art;
And none might tell from sight alone
In which had culture ripest grown,—