"I have a suspicion," said Stoughton, on the way in town, "that those fellows were lying to us. I'll bet this show is something awful, they were probably bored to death, and conceived the happy thought of getting us sold in the same way."
"Never mind," said Hudson, philosophically; "we'll have a good time anyway."
Before the curtain had been up ten minutes, Dick's suspicion gained ground; it's truth was fully confirmed long before the end of the play. The scenery, the birds, and the pine balsam effects were wholly creatures of Burleigh's capable brain; as for Jack Rattleton's houris, Stoughton declared that "Noah was a fool to have saved them; he ought to have shut them out in the rain long enough to get a wash any way."
Even the Athenæum audience was dissatisfied and inclined to jeer. Gray wanted to leave at the end of the first act.
"Hold on," insisted Hudson, "let's stay here and make this a success. There's lots of good sentiment all through it, just your style Gray. All it needs is a little enthusiasm in the house to warm up the actors. Let's lead the applause on the strong points."
So they stayed, and their efforts were attended with such success, that they might have had a free pass for future performances. Every time the hero said, "I am the just man and you are the villain," or the heroine declared she would never leave him while life lasted, or showed other symptoms of heroism, the knot of students would stamp, and applaud, and rouse the finer feelings of the whole house. The grateful actors certainly did warm up, and delivered with more and more vim their honest expressions of lofty sentiment and occasional touches of patriotism, the latter utterly uncalled for, but always welcome. The audience became worked up as well, but in the last act suddenly began to hiss.
"Hullo! what's up now?" asked Gray, who had not taken the Athenæum course faithfully, and was not learned in it; "what are they hissing at?"
"Good gracious, man," answered Hudson, "don't you see? Don't display your ignorance. They are hissing the villain. It's the greatest compliment you can pay him. Go ahead, hiss like a good one."
On the whole, the performance was a grand success, and Hudson insisted that Gray had made an undoubted conquest of the second lady. After it was over some one mentioned "broiled lob. and musty," at Parks, but it was voted to return to Cambridge and make a rarebit there.
"We'll go pull out Ned Burleigh, and have it in his room," suggested Dick.