He sat down again and smoothed out the paper before him. This time he began noticing little niceties of the critic's phrasing ... "entertaining, not to say pathetic rendition," etc., etc.... "Not to say?" Funny; look at it a moment, and it seems to mean it wasn't pathetic. But here it said: "Infectious and heart-tickling old-time Irish humor" ... "excellent characterization of Uriah Heep" ... and so on.
"HE SAT STARING INTO THE BLANKNESS OF THE LITTLE ROOM"
After a few minutes he ceased reading and sat, picking at the edge of the paper, staring into the blankness of the little room. He stayed thus immovable for a long, long time, and then slowly the tears slipped across his cheeks, down on the forgotten "notice," his throat ached with a tender sobbing, and he bowed his head into the newspaper.
He was thinking of the children; he had made them laugh and cry. And this was the thrill, once more, of the singer's heart.